*The below summary of the January 2015 lunch was provided by guest columnist, Rachel Palmer.  Especially interesting are the six underlying conditions that lead to instability.*

On Thursday, January 29, 2015 TBOWIT had the January Lunch Event at Centre Club 123 South WestShore  Blvd. Tampa, FL 33609. Presented by Commodore, Richard Menhinick, Royal Australian Navy. Commodore Menhinick has been in the Navy for 39 years now, but he has lived in Tampa for only 2 years. Out of the 5,000+ people in Central Command at MacDill Air Force, only 100-200 deal with International problems. He thinks that the Central Command at MacDill is great, because they are the only group of its kind in any Central Command office around the world. The officers on his team come from 25 different nations, including: Europe, Asia, Pacific and Central Americas, Afghanistan, China, South Korea and one about to join from Japan.  His team creates Strategic Analysis 3 times a year; these reports go to Washington, Pentagon and even other countries.  Six of the top underlining conditions his team looks at for these reports include: Economy, Religion, Demographics, Resources, Governance, and Artificial Boarders. He also talked about threats around the world including: weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical weaponry, terrorism, and piracy.

The Middle East
      The Middle East is always in the news for something
       His team tries not to concentrate on the countries themselves when dealing  
          with the problems but what causes the problem.
      Six of the top underlining conditions his team looks at:
          Economy, it is often over looked in Strategic Analysis
             They have weak economies
              Syria and Iraq have destroyed their countries trading
          Religion
             530 Million people in Central Command covered areas
         Demographics
              Most of the countries have a very poor education system
              The two countries with the worst conditions are Yemen and Afghanistan
          Resources
              Major issues with food scarcity
              Lack of water is a large threat for many countries
              70% of the food in the Middle East is imported from the Western 
                 countries
          Governance
                Most countries in Middle East have a heavy taint of corruption
                He read off an article his team wrote about corruption and its impact to
                    the communities
                Corruption is in every level of life, not just in the government
                The members of these societies deal with corruption on a daily basis
            Artificial Boarders
                Some countries built these artificial boarders to keep certain ethnic
                      groups out

             Threats
                 Weapons of mass destruction, nuclear and chemical weaponry
                 Israel and Afghanistan, great deal of instability
              Terrorism
                 They call ISIS, DASH
              Piracy
                  Everyone always focuses on “Terrorism in the Sea”
                  Mainly it deals with drugs
                  The U.S Navy was really good at preventing piracy, but it was never
                        publicized  so they stopped trying to prevent it
                   Pakistan to Tanzania is the drug route by water
                   The real danger in piracy is where the money goes

               Human Rights Violations
                   There are almost as many confrontations as there are countries in his
                       area concentrated on about 20 countries
                   The two top confrontations 
                  Iran and Saudi Arabia
                  Pakistan and India
 
              Issues in Iraq and Syria
                Iraq: the government is not involved to stop it
                Syria: more complicated, they need to work out a compromise
               The Central Command wants to beat Dash and stop the Civil Wars