The old national security playbook no longer applies. As emerging technologies reshape the battlefield, great power rivalries intensify, and traditional frameworks evolve, the ground is no longer settled.
America should set New Rules. Pragmatic leaders at home and abroad can no longer afford to provide yesterday’s answer to today’s national security challenges.
From AI and drone warfare to global alliances and economic security, America and its allies need New Rules to compete, deter, and win in the 21st century. The Center for a New American Security develops bold, principled national security policies so that today’s leaders can set the New Rules of tomorrow.
Join leading voices in national security for an exclusive, all-day conference at the forefront of today’s most consequential issues—from AI and cybersecurity to the latest developments in Iran, economic statecraft, and America’s strategic readiness across the world. Bringing together senior professionals across government, military, and industry alongside emerging leaders, the program features compelling main stage discussions, interactive breakout sessions, and meaningful opportunities to connect.
In-person spots are limited.
Featuring: Representative Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Representative Don Bacon (R-Neb.), and Representative Jason Crow (D-Colo.); Moderator: Carrie Cordero
Featuring: Ambassador Urban Ahlin (Sweden), Ambassador Laurent Bili (France), Ambassador Jovita Neliupšienė (European Union), and Ambassador Jesper Møller Sørensen (Denmark); Moderator: Andrea Kendall Taylor
Featuring: The Honorable Susanna Blume, the Honorable Veronica Daigle, and Brian Katz; Moderator: Becca Wasser
Featuring: Lisa Curtis, David Feith, Ambassador Vinay Kwatra (India), and Dr. Ely Ratner; Moderator: Demetri Sevastopulo
Breakout Session: Frontier AI and Cyber Security | Panel Discussion with Dean Ball, Michael Sulmeyer, and John Tilstra; Moderator: Vivek Chilukuri
To learn more about sponsorship opportunities, contact Chris Belisle.
Congressman Jake Auchincloss is serving his third term representing the Massachusetts Fourth. In addition to his work on the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, his areas of focus include healthcare, clean energy, gun violence, and building a strong middle class.
Auchincloss was born and raised in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of a surgeon and a scientist. They showed him the value of curiosity and hard work. From the moment he could read, Auchincloss loved American history.
After graduating from Harvard College, Auchincloss joined the Marines. He commanded infantry in Afghanistan and special operations in Panama.
Upon returning home, Auchincloss continued his service as a three-term city councilor in Newton. While working at City Hall on nights and weekends, Auchincloss built a career in business, running product development at both a Fortune 100 insurance company and a cybersecurity startup. He has degrees in economics and finance from Harvard University and MIT Sloan School of Management.
Today, Auchincloss lives in Newton with his wife, Michelle, and their children, Teddy, Grace, and Audrey (along with their Labrador Retriever, Donut).
General CQ Brown, Jr., USAF, Retired, is a strategic leader and global security expert whose nearly 40-year military career has centered on leading people, strengthening alliances, and driving change. He most recently served as the 21st Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s highest ranking military officer. General Brown also served as the 22nd Chief of Staff of the Air Force and commanded at every level, serving across the United States, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific.
He now draws on experience from the flight line to the White House Situation Room to help organizations and their leadership navigate uncertainty in complex and high-stakes environments. General Brown currently serves as an executive-in-residence at Duke University, as the Hoover Institution’s Susan McCaw distinguished visiting fellow, and as a member of the Shield Capital and RAND National Security Advisory Boards. General Brown serves on the boards of directors of Bessemer Trust, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, and the Air & Space Forces Association, and is a senior advisor to McKinsey & Company. He also advises several private companies. Throughout his military career, General Brown received numerous awards to include being named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People. He earned a bachelor’s in civil engineering from Texas Tech University, a master’s in aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and served as a national defense fellow at the Institute for Defense Analyses.
Vivek Chilukuri is the senior fellow and program director of the Technology and National Security Program at CNAS. His work focuses on the responsible development and deployment of artificial intelligence; U.S. technology leadership; and the intersection of technology, democracy, and geopolitics.
Before joining CNAS, Chilukuri served as a senior staff member for Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Chilukuri served as Bennet’s senior policy advisor for technology and democracy, deputy chief of staff, legislative director, and chief speechwriter. During his tenure on Capitol Hill, Chilukuri worked on legislation to strengthen America’s technology competitiveness, promote responsible governance for digital platforms and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, and expand access to high-speed broadband through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Previously, Chilukuri served in the Department of State as a policy advisor to the undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights, and as a program officer on the Middle East and North Africa team at the National Democratic Institute.
Chilukuri received an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School and a BA in international studies from UNC-Chapel Hill, where he graduated as a Robertson Scholar.
David Feith is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. He specializes in U.S.-China relations and technology policy, including artificial intelligence, export controls, and managing dual-use risks.
Feith served in the second Trump administration as special assistant to the president and senior director for technology and national security on the U.S. National Security Council.
Feith served in the first Trump administration as U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, overseeing the Offices of Regional and Security Policy and Multilateral Affairs, and as a member of the secretary of state’s policy planning staff, helping to create the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy and reorient U.S. policy toward China and Asia generally.
Before government service, Feith worked for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong from 2013 to 2017, writing editorials on Asian economic and political affairs, and before that as an op-ed editor in New York from 2010 to 2013. He was also an assistant editor at Foreign Affairs.
Feith has consulted for a wide range of financial and corporate clients, and for the U.S. Air Force. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, and his writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Commentary, and other publications.
He is also an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
Feith received a BA in history from Columbia University.
Richard Fontaine is chief executive officer of CNAS. He serves concurrently as a member of Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust and as executive director of the Trilateral Commission’s North America group. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council (NSC), and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Fontaine served as foreign policy advisor to the McCain 2008 presidential campaign and subsequently as minority deputy staff director on the Senate Armed Services Committee. He was associate director for Near Eastern affairs at the NSC from 2003–4 and focused on Southeast Asia in the NSC’s Asian Affairs directorate.
At the State Department, Fontaine worked for the deputy secretary and in the department’s South Asia bureau. Fontaine began his foreign policy career working on the Middle East and South Asia for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He also spent a year teaching English in Japan.
Katherine Kuzminski is the director of studies at CNAS, where she is responsible for managing the Center’s research agenda, publications, and research staff.
In addition to her senior management role, Kuzminski leads the Center’s work on national security human capital. Her research specializations include military recruitment, retention, and talent management; mobilization; Department of Defense institutional and organizational design and management; civil-military relations; and veteran and military family issues.
Kuzminski previously served as the deputy director of studies and the director of the Military, Veterans, and Society (MVS) Program at CNAS. She returned to CNAS from the RAND Corporation, where she was a political scientist researching military personnel policy. During her time at RAND, she led research teams examining officer personnel management, reserve component utilization, senior officer selection and development, military culture, and ground force capability development.
From 2013 to 2017, Kuzminski served as a research associate, Bacevich fellow, and fellow for the CNAS MVS Program. During this time, she led the Rebuilding the Bipartisan Defense Consensus Project and developed the Veterans Data Project.
Kuzminski has testified before the congressionally mandated National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. Her research and analysis have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, BBC, NBC Nightly News, and CBS Evening News. She is completing a certificate in management excellence at Harvard Business School, and earned a BS in military history and an MA in security studies from Kansas State University.
Lieutenant General John (Jack) N.T. Shanahan, United States Air Force, retired, is an adjunct senior fellow with the CNAS Technology and National Security Program and concluded a distinguished 36-year military career in 2020. In his final role, he served as the inaugural director of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Artificial Center, where he led efforts to integrate artificial intelligence across the defense enterprise. Throughout his career, Shanahan held a variety of operational and staff positions spanning flying operations, intelligence, policy, and command and control. He commanded at the squadron, group, wing, agency, and numbered Air Force levels. As the founding director of the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (Project Maven), he pioneered the DoD’s first operational AI program, advancing the use of AI for military operations and intelligence collection and analysis.
Shanahan earned a master of international studies from North Carolina State University (NCSU) in 2022 and serves on the NCSU Shelton Leadership Center Board of Advisors. He is a nonresident senior fellow with the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Additionally, Shanahan serves on numerous defense- and intelligence-focused committees, boards, and advisory groups, and advises on the use of AI for national security.
Stacie Pettyjohn is a senior fellow and director of the Defense Program at CNAS. Her areas of expertise include defense strategy, posture, force planning, the defense budget, airpower, and wargaming. Her current projects focus on the effect of drones on warfare, munitions stockpiles, and nuclear deterrence in a multipolar world. Pettyjohn also serves as the chair for the Total Force Integration Subcommittee on the Reserve Forces Policy Board, a federal advisory committee within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and teaches a graduate course on wargaming as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced and International Studies.
Prior to joining CNAS, Pettyjohn spent over 10 years at the RAND Corporation, where she served as the director of the Strategy and Doctrine Program in Project AIR FORCE and the codirector of the Center for Gaming. In 2020, she was a volunteer on the Biden administration’s defense transition team. Previously, she was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, a peace scholar at the United States Institute of Peace, and a TAPIR fellow at the RAND Corporation.
Pettyjohn has authored or coauthored reports on a wide range of issues, including drones, defense strategy and budgets, nuclear deterrence and escalation management, readiness and responsiveness, the role of airpower in defeating the Islamic State, gray zone competition with Russia, possible war fighting scenarios with North Korea, and command and control of multinational NATO amphibious forces. Additionally, she has crafted a large body of work on the United States’ overseas posture, which explores the operational requirements, its vulnerability to attack, and the political access challenges that the United States faces.
Pettyjohn’s work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks, Defense News, The National Interest, Foreign Policy, and Lawfare. She has a PhD and an MA in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia and a BA in history and political science from the Ohio State University.
Emily Kilcrease is a senior fellow and director of the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at CNAS, where her research focuses on the U.S.-China economic relationship, the alignment of national security and economic policy, and geoeconomic statecraft.
She previously served as a deputy assistant U.S. trade representative, leading USTR's work on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and playing a key role in the Phase One Agreement with China and CFIUS reform regulations. Earlier in her career she served on the National Security Council as director for international trade, investment, and development, and held positions at the Departments of Commerce and Interior. Her commentary has appeared in major outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times, and she has testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. She holds an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS and a BA from Georgetown University.
Paul Scharre is the executive vice president at CNAS. He is the award-winning author of Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. His first book, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War, won the 2019 Colby Award and was named by The Economist as one of the top five books to understand modern warfare. TIME magazine named him in 2023 as one of the “100 most influential people in AI.”
Scharre previously worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) where he played a leading role in establishing policies on unmanned and autonomous systems and emerging weapons technologies. He led the Department of Defense (DoD) working group that drafted DoD Directive 3000.09, establishing the department’s policies on autonomy in weapon systems. He also led DoD efforts to establish policies on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance programs and directed energy technologies. Scharre was involved in the drafting of policy guidance for the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, and secretary-level planning guidance.
Prior to joining the OSD, Scharre served as a special operations reconnaissance team leader in the U.S. Army’s 3rd Ranger Battalion and completed multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a graduate of the Army’s Airborne, Ranger, and Sniper schools and the honor graduate of the 75th Ranger Regiment’s Ranger Indoctrination Program.
Scharre has published articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, TIME, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Politico, and USA Today, and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, and the BBC. He has testified before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and has presented at the United Nations, NATO, the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other national security venues. He holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London and an MA in political economy and public policy and a BS in physics from Washington University in St. Louis.
Dr. Ely Ratner is a principal at the Marathon Initiative and a senior advisor at Clarion Strategies. He served as assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs from 2021 to 2025 and as deputy national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden from 2015 to 2017. He has also worked in the Office of China, Mongolia, and Taiwan Affairs at the State Department and in the U.S. Senate as a professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Outside of government, Ratner served as the executive vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, as a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and as an associate political scientist at the RAND Corporation. He received his BA from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and earned his PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Growing up and working on the family farm in Illinois, Rep. Don Bacon learned first-hand how the value of hard work and commitment contributes to the success of a small business. He left the farm to attend Northern Illinois University, graduating with a bachelor of arts in political science in 1984. That same year, he married Angie, the love of his life. Together they share three sons, one daughter, and eight grandchildren.
In 1985, Bacon began his military career when he joined the U.S. Air Force and served nearly 30 years on active duty, culminating his military career at the rank of brigadier general. During his career in the Air Force, Bacon specialized in electronic warfare and intelligence.
His military career highlights include two tours as a wing commander at Ramstein Airbase in Germany and Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, Nebraska; squadron and group command at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona; and expeditionary squadron command, flying combat missions over Iraq. Bacon served 16 assignments with four deployments to the Middle East, including one to Iraq from 2007 to 2008 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Bacon is a National War College graduate, distinguished graduate of Intelligence School, Navigator School, and Air Command and Staff College. He earned two master’s degrees while serving in the Air Force.
In 2016, Bacon was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Nebraska’s Second Congressional District. He was named to the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) in 2017, where he currently serves on the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces and the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. In the 118th Congress, Bacon was named chairman of the bipartisan HASC Military Quality of Life Panel and led a year-long inquiry into military pay, housing, childcare, support for military spouses, and healthcare access. His efforts yielded more than 30 legislative recommendations to improve the lives of military servicemembers and families, which were included in the House National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2025.
After completing his work on the Military Quality of Life Panel, Bacon was named chairman of the HASC Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation. Since 2017, he has been named by the Speaker of the House to every NDAA Conference Committee responsible for reconciling differences between the House and Senate defense bills before final passage and enactment.
Serving on the House Committee on Agriculture since 2017, he led the effort on the 2017 Farm Bill to include language for a foot-and-mouth disease vaccine and has four bills included in the House’s version of the 2024 Farm Bill: a bill to monitor and prohibit foreign ownership of farmland; language allowing temporary contractor hiring for efficient SNAP administration during crises, funding for youth organizations, expanding programs in rural areas to nurture leadership and community engagement; and language to protect roosters and dogs, prohibit trafficking, enable citizen suits, and enhance enforcement.
During his tenure in Congress, Bacon cofounded and twice chaired the For Country Caucus, a group of principled military veteran congressional members working together across party lines to pass thoughtful legislation related to national security, veterans’ affairs, and national service issues. In addition, he served as chair of the Republican Main Street Caucus, a group he resurrected in the 117th Congress. He is currently a cochair for the largest bipartisan caucus, the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth. A member of the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors since 2017 and boards for the Holocaust Museum, Bacon also cochairs the House Baltic Caucus, the Congressional Office for International Leadership, the Electromagnetic Warfare Working Group, and the Congressional Soccer Caucus.
Following the 2019 Midwest floods, which devastated Offutt Air Force Base and Camp Ashland, Bacon quickly organized the effort in the House to secure more than $1.6 billion in emergency federal funding to clean up, rebuild, and modernize both installations, which are critical to U.S. national defense and Nebraska’s economy. Following his support for the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Eppley Airfield has received more than $70 million to modernize this significant regional transportation hub, making it more accessible for international flights. Most recently, this legislation has provided more than $25 million to the cities of Omaha and Wahoo for sewer and gas pipeline replacement projects.
Together with his staff, Bacon has received the following key awards and recognition: These honors include the Outstanding Constituent Services Award by the Congressional Management Foundation (2021); Ranked #1 Most Effective Republican Legislator in the House by the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University’s Center for Effective Lawmaking (2022); Ranked #2 for Highest Number of Bills Signed into Law in the House by Govtrack.us (2022); the Defender of Children Award by the First Focus Campaign for Children (2022 & 2023); Top 10 Most Bi-Partisan Member of the House by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy Georgetown University (2022 & 2023); the Outstanding Workplace Environment Award by the Congressional Management Foundation (2024); and the Top Elected Official in America for Bipartisan Cooperation by the Common Ground Committee (2021, 2022, 2023 & 2024).
Ambassador Jesper Møller Sørensen is the Ambassador of Denmark to The United States at the Royal Danish Embassy in Washington D.C.
Most recently, he held a position as the State Secretary for Foreign Policy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (2019-2023). Prior to this, he was the Political Director in the Foreign Ministry (2015-2019).
Ambassador Møller Sørensen has also previously been the Ambassador of Denmark to Pakistan (2013-2015), and the Deputy Ambassador to Afghanistan (2010-2011).
In 2019, he also briefly served in the EU’s European External Action Service (EEAS).
Ambassador Møller Sørensen began his career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Denmark in 1997. He served abroad at the Royal Danish Embassy in Ankara, Turkey (2000-2003), and he was Minister Counsellor for political affairs at the Royal Danish Embassy in Washington D.C. (2005-2009).
Earlier in his career, Ambassador Møller Sørensen worked in the department for European Enlargement (1997-1998), the department for Africa (1998-2000), and the department for Security Policy (2003-2005). He also served as the Head of Department of the Analysis Unit (2011-2013).
The Ambassador holds a Master of Political Science from University of Copenhagen and a bachelor from Aarhus University. He is a First Class Knight of the Order of Dannebrog.
Ambassador Møller Sørensen lives with his partner, Rasmus Windeløv. They have two young children.
Jovita Neliupšienė became the Ambassador of the European Union to the United States on January 1, 2024. Before that, she was a Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania from September 2022, where she was responsible for the coordination of European Affairs, European bilateral and regional issues, as well as national sanctions coordinator.
From 2020-2022, she was Vice Minister of Economy and Innovation of Lithuania, tasked with investment and export promotion, international cooperation, including policy coordination of state-owned enterprises, as well as chairing the interagency commission for export control.
In 2020, she held the post of Chancellor and State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania. This position included responsibility for staff coordination, legal and consular affairs. Between 2015-2020, she served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Lithuania to the EU. These years were marked by the migration crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
From 2009-2015, she worked as an advisor and chief foreign policy advisor to the President of the Republic of Lithuania Ms. Dalia Grybauskaite. She was responsible for foreign policy coordination, inter-institutional relations, as well as the role of sherpa/EU advisor, and in this respect took a leading position in preparing and coordinating the Lithuanian presidency of the EU Council in 2013. In 2014, she was awarded the State Decoration Order "For Merit to Lithuania" Commander's Cross.
Congressman Jason Crow represents Colorado and its Sixth Congressional District in Congress.
Former Army Ranger and Bronze Star recipient Jason Crow grew up working class — he worked minimum-wage jobs during high school and enlisted in the National Guard and worked construction to help pay his way through school.
After graduating, Jason joined the active duty Army and served in the Army’s storied 82nd Airborne Division and in the elite 75th Ranger Regiment, deploying to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Even when he rose to the rank of Captain, Jason always remembered what it was like to march in the boots of an Army private. For Jason, this is the essence of servant leadership — always putting the needs of those you lead ahead of your own — and it continues to drive his approach today.
When Jason returned home, he looked for ways to continue to give back. Jason struggled to get his veterans benefits and knew others were having similar challenges transitioning from service to civilian life, so he went to work helping veterans across Colorado. As an attorney, Jason was named Denver’s Pro-bono Lawyer of the Year for work helping service members transition from military to civilian life.
Now Jason has taken his servant leadership to Congress, where he represents Colorado and serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Armed Services Committee, on which he is the Ranking Democrat of the Intelligence and Special Operations Subcommittee.
From lowering costs and fighting corruption to combatting the climate crisis and preventing gun violence, Jason is focused on putting working families, Colorado, and our country ahead of politics and partisanship.
Dean Woodley Ball is a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. He most recently served as senior policy advisor for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and strategic advisor for AI at the National Science Foundation. Previously he was a research fellow in the Artificial Intelligence & Progress Project at George Mason University's Mercatus Center and a policy fellow at Fathom.
Dean is author of Hyperdimensional. His work focuses on emerging technologies and the future of governance, spanning artificial intelligence, manufacturing innovation, neural technology, bioengineering, technology policy, political theory, public finance, urban infrastructure, and criminal justice reform. Outside of FAI, his scholarship has been published by the Mercatus Center, the Hoover Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Federation of American Scientists, the Manhattan Institute, and American Compass.
His writing has appeared in National Affairs, The New Atlantis, Pirate Wires, Lawfare, The Dispatch, The Hill, Tech Policy Press, the Washington Post, the Orange County Register, the Coolidge Quarterly, and National Review. His academic work includes "Neither Harbour nor Floor: Contemplating the Singularity with Michael Oakeshott" in the forthcoming Liberalism Revisited (Palgrave) and "Ideas of Another Order: Michael Oakeshott and Confucius in Conversation" in Collingwood and British Idealism Studies.
Prior to his government service, Dean held senior positions at Stanford's Hoover Institution, the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, and the Manhattan Institute, where he oversaw the Hayek Book Prize. He also consults on passion projects, including on-the-ground policing reform in Argentina and Chile and the restoration of the Florentine guild system for sacred liturgical art.
Dean serves on the board of directors of the Alexander Hamilton Institute and was selected as an Aspen Ideas Fellow. He graduated magna cum laude from Hamilton College with a BA in history and lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Abigail, and their two cats, Io and Ganymede.
Dr. Heidi A. Urben is Associate Director of the Security Studies Program and Professor of the Practice in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She also serves as a senior associate (non-resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Prior to assuming her current position in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program, she served as its Director of External Education and Outreach, and from 2021-2022, she served as a
Chamberlain Fellow in the political science department at Howard University. A retired U.S. Army colonel, she served on active duty for more than 23 years, culminating in command of a military intelligence brigade at Fort Meade, Maryland.
Her research interests focus on civil-military relations, public opinion, military and defense policy, and national security strategy, and her research has been featured in Foreign Affairs, The New York
Times, The Washington Post, Time, NPR, and Politico, as well as in numerous academic journals. Her book entitled, Party, Politics, and the Post-9/11 Army was published with Cambria Press in 2021. Dr. Urben holds a B.A. in Government and International Studies from the University of Notre Dame, an M.S. in National Security Strategy from the National War College, and an M.P.M., M.A., and Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University.
Dr. Michael Sulmeyer is Professor of the Practice at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Previously, he was the first Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy and the Principal Cyber Advisor to the Secretary of Defense. In these roles, he was responsible for overseeing the Department of Defense’s cyber policies and operations. Prior to his appointment as Assistant Secretary, Dr. Sulmeyer served as the Principal Cyber Advisor to the Secretary of the Army. While with the Army, he led the service’s efforts to improve the cybersecurity of its critical infrastructure. Before his time with the Army, Dr. Sulmeyer served in multiple positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also served as Senior Advisor to the Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, as well as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Cyber Policy on the National Security Council staff.
Outside of government, Dr. Sulmeyer was the Director of the Cybersecurity Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He also taught at the University of Texas School of Law and was a Senior Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Dr. Sulmeyer was a Contributing Editor to the national security blog Lawfare and in the mid-1990s, he was the System Operator (SysOp) of The Summit BBS in Santa Barbara, California.
Born the son of immigrants and raised by a single mom, Ruben knows what it means to live the American Dream. After growing up poor and working every job he could find to help support his mom and three sisters – at a pizza joint, construction sites, and a meat-packing plant – Ruben became a first-generation college student, graduating from Harvard University.
Motivated to give back to the country that had given him such opportunities, Ruben enlisted in the Marine Corps and deployed to Iraq in 2005 as an infantryman, serving with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines. His company saw some of the worst fighting of the Iraq War, losing 22 Marines and Navy Corpsman to enemy action in eight months.
Following his experience in Iraq, Ruben committed to ensuring that servicemen and women are never sent into harm’s way without a plan for winning the fight and securing their well-being. Ruben was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2010 where he pushed to expand Medicaid and worked across the aisle to secure in state tuition for all veterans.
In 2014, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Over his ten years in the House, Ruben fought tirelessly for hardworking Arizonans – distinguishing himself as the highest-ranking Latino on the House Armed Services Committee and defending Arizona’s water supply and natural beauty as a member of the House Natural Resources Committee.
In November 2024, Ruben was elected to the U.S. Senate. He was sworn in on January 3, 2025, with the promise to fight for all Arizonans.
Ruben lives in South Phoenix with his wife, Sydney, sons Michael and Cooper, and daughter, Isla.
Peter D. Feaver (Ph.D., Harvard, 1990) is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke University. He is Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy, co-PI of the America in the World Consortium, and co-Interim Director of Duke’s Civil Discourse Project. Feaver is also a member of the CNAS Board of Advisors.
Feaver is author of Thanks for Your Service: The Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the Military (Oxford University Press, 2023), Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Harvard Press, 2003), and Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the United States (Cornell University Press, 1992). He is co-author: with Christopher Gelpi and Jason Reifler, of Paying the Human Costs of War (Princeton Press, 2009); with Susan Wasiolek and Anne Crossman, of Getting the Best Out of College (Ten Speed Press, 2008, 2nd edition 2012); and with Christopher Gelpi, of Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force (Princeton Press, 2004).
He has published numerous other monographs, scholarly articles, book chapters, and policy pieces on grand strategy, American foreign policy, public opinion, nuclear proliferation, civil-military relations, and cybersecurity.
Feaver served on the NSC staff under both President Clinton (as a Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control, 1993-1994) and President Bush (as Special Advisor for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform, 2005-2007). In 2020-21, Feaver was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. In 2021, he received the Morris Janowitz Career Achievement Award of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society.
His Excellency Urban Ahlin has been the Ambassador of Sweden to the United States since September 2023.
Ambassador Ahlin most recently served as Sweden's Ambassador to Canada. Prior to that, he was a member of the Swedish Parliament, representing the Social Democratic Party. Following the 2014 parliamentary election, Ambassador Ahlin was elected Speaker of the Swedish Parliament, Sveriges Riksdag, for the period 2014-2018.
Ambassador Ahlin first became a member of Parliament in 1994. Since then, he has worked on foreign policy in numerous capacities. He was Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs between 2002 and 2006, and later Deputy Chair from 2006 to 2014. He has also been a member of the War Delegation, the Swedish Defence Commission, and a member of the Committee on European Affairs.
As part of his work for the Social Democratic Party, Ambassador Ahlin served as the party’s Foreign Policy Spokesperson and has also been a member of the party’s Executive Board.
In addition, Ambassador Ahlin is one of the founding members of the first pan-European think-tank, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), which was established in 2007.
Ambassador Ahlin is a teacher and graduated from the University of Karlstad with a Master of Science. He is married and has two daughters
The Honorable Susanna V. Blume is a distinguished senior fellow in CNAS’s defense program.
Blume most recently served as the Department of Defense’s Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE). In this role she supported the Secretary of Defense in shaping the future joint force by designing and executing robust analyses and strategy-driven resourcing plans.
Prior to that role, Blume was a Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security where she focused on force planning, acquisition, and resourcing issues. She also served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Programs and Plans to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, advising on critical issues such as budgeting, force management, strategic planning, and acquisition policy. Her previous experience includes roles in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Plans and Posture.
Blume holds a master’s degree in international studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, a law degree from the George Washington University Law School, and a bachelor’s degree in the history of art from Johns Hopkins University.
Brian Katz is an adjunct fellow with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where his research focuses on the intersection of intelligence, emerging technologies, and global security. He returns to CSIS after serving in the Biden administration as a senior policy adviser to the under secretaries of defense for intelligence and security (2021–22) and research and engineering (2023), advising on defense and intelligence technology policy and investments. From 2018 to 2021, Brian was a fellow at CSIS and executive director of the CSIS Technology and Intelligence Task Force, authoring its final report, Maintaining the Intelligence Edge.
Prior to CSIS, Brian served for a decade at the Central Intelligence Agency as a military analyst and team chief and as country director for Syria in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Brian is also an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, currently serving with the Defense Innovation Unit, where he spearheads commercial technology partnerships with the U.S. intelligence community. In 2022, Brian mobilized to active duty to serve as senior intelligence officer for Navy SEAL teams operating in the Indo-Pacific region.
Brian is currently a Sloan fellow at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a graduate of Duke University and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a former CFR international affairs fellow. Brian is the recipient of three National Intelligence Medals, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service, and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal.
Veronica Blount Daigle is the President of Red Cell’s National Security Practice and a Partner at the firm. Prior to joining, she was an Executive Director within Boeing’s Legislative Affairs, Government Operations. Before her time at Boeing, Ms. Daigle was the Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness in the Department of Defense (DoD), where she served as the principal staff advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness on all matters related to military readiness. In that position, Ms. Daigle managed three deputy assistant secretaries of defense, with a combined staff of over 50 military and civilian personnel.
Ms. Daigle entered the Federal Government in 2008 as a Presidential Management Fellow at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and subsequently served as an operations research analyst in DoD’s office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE). From 2008 to 2013, Ms. Daigle assessed a wide-ranging portfolio of issues, including the operational requirements and costs for Army ground operations, the potential effect of continued Overseas Contingency Operations funding on readiness programs, and the sufficiency of resources to support mental health services for Service Members. In 2013, Ms. Daigle was selected to become a career member of the Senior Executive Service and served as the Director of CAPE’s Force and Infrastructure Analysis Division. She joined the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness in 2017 as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness, and was confirmed by the Senate to be the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness in the summer of 2019.
Prior to her federal service, Ms. Daigle worked nearly ten years in the financial sector where she developed industry-wide benchmarks to measure the risk-adjusted performance of securities lending activities. She collaborated closely with senior executives at 20 global banking institutions to prepare customized benchmark analyses and marketing strategies, and supported over 150 state Treasurers, public pension fund executives, and mutual fund administrators in assessing the performance of their securities lending programs.
Ms. Daigle earned a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Fordham University and a Master’s Degree in Political Science/International Affairs from George Mason University. She is a recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service.
Born and raised on a farm in Montgomery County, Joni’s parents instilled in her the values important to Iowans: hard work, service, and sacrifice. After graduating top of her class at Stanton High School, Joni went on to Iowa State University where she joined the university’s ROTC program.
After graduating from Iowa State, Joni joined the U.S. Army Reserves. In 2003, she served as a company commander in Kuwait and Iraq, leading 150 Iowa Army National Guardsmen during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Joni retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard after 23 years of military service.
Joni previously served as the Montgomery County Auditor where she worked to eliminate wasteful government spending and protect taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars, and was the local commissioner of elections. As a state senator, Joni fought to balance the state budget and helped turn Iowa’s $900 million budget deficit into a $1 billion surplus. In November 2014, Joni was elected as the first woman to serve in federal elected office from the State of Iowa and also became the first female combat veteran elected to serve in the United States Senate.
Becca Wasser is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and an expert on defense strategy, military operations, and wargaming. She serves as Defense Lead at Bloomberg Economics, where she directs research and analysis assessing how the evolving geopolitical, technological, and macroeconomic trends impact defense strategy, military operations, and future conflict.
At CNAS, Wasser formerly served as deputy director of the Defense Program, where her work focused on the future of warfare, particularly the long-term implications of great power competition for the defense industrial base, the integration of AI and autonomy into military operations, and conventional and nuclear deterrence in an increasingly proliferated world. Wasser also led The Gaming Lab, where she designed and facilitated innovative wargames and scenario-based assessments to inform senior defense and policy decisionmakers.
She previously served as a staff member on the bipartisan, congressionally appointed 2022 National Defense Strategy Commission, authoring key sections of the Commission’s report on adapting U.S. defense strategy for a more contested and uncertain security environment.
Prior to CNAS, Wasser was a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, providing analytic support on national security and defense issues to the U.S. Department of Defense and serving as liaison to U.S. Army HQDA G-3/5/7. She also worked as a research analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, based in Washington, D.C., and Manama, Bahrain.
Her analysis appears across Bloomberg platforms and in major outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and War on the Rocks, as well as The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, CNN, and MSNBC.
Wasser holds an M.S. in Foreign Service, with distinction, from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and a B.A. in international and global studies from Brandeis University.
Ambassador Vinay Kwatra joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1988. In a career spanning over 36 years, Ambassador Kwatra has served in senior roles both in Delhi and across the globe. Prior to assuming his assignment as Ambassador of India to the U.S.A, he served as India’s Foreign Secretary from 2022 to 2024. He has also Ambassador of India to Nepal from 2020 to 2022, and Ambassador of India to France and Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO from 2017 to 2020. He has also served as Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office (2015-2017), and has headed several divisions of the Ministry of External Affairs.
Carrie Cordero is Robert M. Gates senior fellow and general counsel at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). In her research capacity, she leads the CNAS National Security Law Program, which focuses on homeland security, the intelligence community, surveillance, cybersecurity, and rule of law issues. She has testified before the United States Congress on homeland security, surveillance law, and foreign influence on democratic institutions. Her writing has appeared across national publications and platforms, including at The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN.com, Politico, USA Today, Defense One, Lawfare, and Just Security, among others.
As general counsel, Cordero provides legal advice and counsel to the CNAS executive team and staff, including on matters of compliance, cybersecurity, privacy, contracts, grants, ethics, employment and all other aspects of managing an independent nonprofit organization conducting national security, foreign policy and defense policy research, and its associated fundraising activities. She also serves as secretary to the Board of Directors.
Outside CNAS, Cordero has been a CNN legal and national security analyst since 2017. She is also a member of the board of advisors of the Tech, Law & Security Program at American University’s Washington College of Law and the Advisory Committee of the ABA’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security. From March 2022–January 20, 2025, Cordero was a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Cordero spent the first part of her career in public service, including as counsel to the assistant attorney general for national security; senior associate general counsel at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; and attorney advisor at the U.S. Department of Justice, during which time she handled critical counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations and appeared frequently before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. At the U.S. Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, she worked extensively on developing policies, procedures, and processes relating to oversight, compliance, and protection of privacy and civil liberties in the context of government national security investigations and intelligence activities. She also served as a special assistant United States attorney. After leaving government service, Cordero was the director of national security studies at Georgetown Law, where she also served as adjunct professor of law from 2010 to 2020. She was also in private practice, handling matters related to surveillance, law enforcement response, security, and privacy.
Cordero earned her JD, cum laude, from Washington College of Law, American University, and her BA, magna cum laude, from Barnard College, Columbia University.
A graduate of the French National School of Public Administration (ENA) (Victor Hugo Year, 1989-91), Laurent Bili joined the French Foreign Ministry's Strategic Affairs and Disarmament Directorate (1991-93).
Seconded to the Defence Ministry as Deputy Diplomatic Adviser (1993-95), he then held several positions at the Quai d'Orsay: First Secretary and then Second Counsellor at the French Embassy in Ankara (1995-99), First Secretary, Permanent Representative of France to the Western European Union (WEU) (1998-2000), Adviser to the European Union's interim Political and Security Committee (PSC) in Brussels (2000-02), Head of Strategic Affairs (2002).
In 2002, he was Director of the Private Office of the Minister Delegate for European Affairs and became technical adviser at the Diplomatic Unit of the Presidency of the French Republic (2002-07).
He successively held the positions of Ambassador to Thailand (2007-09), Director of the Defence Minister's Civilian and Military Office (2009-10), Ambassador to Turkey (2011-15) and then to Brazil (2015-17).
Laurent Bili was then Director-General for Global Affairs, Culture, Education and International Development at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and G7/G20 Sous-Sherpa (2017-2019). Laurent Bili was Ambassador to China from September 2019 until January 2023.
He is now Ambassador to the United States since March 2nd, 2023.
David McKenzie is the communications director at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) where he leads a team of communications and event professionals that strategically highlights CNAS’ groundbreaking research and analysis to its influential audience of policymakers, professionals, and the wider public.
McKenzie comes to CNAS after an award-winning 16-year career with CNN, most recently as a senior international correspondent and bureau leader based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
His reporting spanned five continents and dozens of countries. Most recently, McKenzie was heavily involved in CNN’s coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where he focused on the impact of the war on civilians, allegations of Russian war crimes, and the experience of regular soldiers.
McKenzie was CNN’s Beijing-based correspondent at a critical period in the country’s history. He reported extensively on Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power, the expansion of China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific, and the burgeoning Chinese space program.
Much of McKenzie’s career at CNN focused on the Global South, with in-depth investigative reporting and analysis from the African continent—in particular, highlighting the competition for influence from outside actors. He started his CNN career as their Nairobi-based correspondent.
McKenzie has won multiple awards for his journalism, including a Royal Television Society Award for breaking news, the Amnesty International Award, and a Peabody for team coverage of the Arab Spring.
Prior to CNN, McKenzie helped launch the innovative UNICEF Africa Services Unit—a full-service communications hub for UN country offices across the continent.
McKenzie has degrees in public policy and psychology from Duke University and a master’s in journalism from New York University where he was on a full scholarship.
Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a senior fellow and director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). She works on national security challenges facing the United States and Europe, focusing on Russia, authoritarianism and threats to democracy, and the state of the transatlantic alliance.
Prior to joining CNAS, Kendall-Taylor served for eight years as a senior intelligence officer. From 2015 to 2018, she was deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). In this role, Kendall-Taylor led the U.S. intelligence community’s (IC) strategic analysis on Russia, represented the IC in interagency policy meetings, provided analysis to the National Security Council, and briefed the DNI and other senior staff for White House and international meetings. Prior to joining the NIC, Kendall-Taylor was a senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency where she worked on Russia and Eurasia, the political dynamics of autocracies, and democratic decline.
Outside CNAS, Kendall-Taylor has been a CNN national security analyst. She is also a distinguished practitioner in grand strategy at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Her work has been published in numerous political science and policy journals, including Journal of Peace Research, Democratization, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, The Washington Quarterly, and Foreign Policy.
Kendall-Taylor received her BA in politics from Princeton University and her PhD in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles. She was a Fulbright scholar in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where she conducted dissertation research on oil and autocracy.
Lisa Curtis is a senior fellow and director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). She is a foreign policy and national security expert with over 20 years of service in the U.S. government, including at the National Security Council (NSC), CIA, State Department, and Capitol Hill. Her work has centered on U.S. policy toward the Indo-Pacific and South Asia, with a particular focus on U.S.-India strategic relations; Quad (United States, Australia, India, and Japan) cooperation; counterterrorism strategy in South and Central Asia; and China’s role in the region.
Curtis served as deputy assistant to the president and NSC senior director for South and Central Asia from 2017 to 2021. During her tenure at the NSC, she coordinated U.S. policy development and implementation of the South Asia Strategy approved by the president in 2017 and was a key contributor to the Indo-Pacific Strategic Framework, which included expanding Quad security cooperation.
She coordinated policies designed to strengthen the U.S.-India defense, diplomatic, and trade partnership, resulting in a widely recognized elevation of the relationship. Curtis also coordinated development of the U.S. strategy toward Central Asia, to include facilitating new partnerships with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Curtis received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in December 2020 in recognition of her work at the NSC.
From 2006 to 2017, Curtis was senior fellow on South Asia at the Heritage Foundation, where her responsibilities included research, writing, regular media appearances, and frequent congressional testimony. She also served as a professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, handling the South Asia portfolio for former chairman of the committee, Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), from 2003 to 2006. Before that, she worked as a senior advisor in the South Asia Bureau at the State Department, where she developed and coordinated U.S. policy on India-Pakistan relations. In the late 1990s, she worked as a senior analyst on South Asia at the CIA, and from 1994 to 1998 served at the U.S. embassies in Pakistan and India.
Curtis has published commentary in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, CNN.com, NPR.org, and other media outlets. She has made multiple appearances on CNN, Fox News, BBC, PBS, MSNBC, and C-SPAN.
Curtis currently is board chair of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, on the Leadership Council of Women in National Security, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She received her BA in economics from Indiana University in December 1990.
Caleb Withers is a research associate for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). He focuses on frontier artificial intelligence (AI) and national security, including emerging AI capabilities, their impacts in the biological and cyber domains, and compute policy.
Before CNAS, Withers worked as a policy analyst for a variety of New Zealand government departments. He has an MA in security studies from Georgetown University, concentrating in technology and security, and a bachelor of commerce from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, majoring in economics and information systems.
Demetri covers U.S. relations with China and the Indo-Pacific. He previously served as Washington Bureau Chief, U.S. Politics Correspondent, Pentagon & CIA Correspondent, Washington Business Correspondent and South China Correspondent. He also spent four years running the FT’s Asia news operations from Hong Kong. He began his career as a currency derivatives trader at Citibank in Japan. He graduated from Trinity College in Ireland and holds an MA in East Asian studies from Harvard University. He studied Chinese at Beijing University and Japanese at Sophia University in Tokyo. He speaks fluent Japanese, rusty Mandarin Chinese and basic Cantonese. He was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, but has spent a quarter of his life in Asia (Tokyo, Hong Kong & Beijing).
Kori Schake is a senior fellow and the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Before joining AEI, Dr. Schake was the deputy director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. She has had a distinguished career in government, working at the US State Department, the US Department of Defense, and the National Security Council at the White House. She was also a senior policy advisor on the 2008 McCain campaign. She has taught at Stanford, West Point, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and the University of Maryland, and is currently the Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress.
Dr. Schake is the author of five books: The State and the Soldier: a History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States (Polity Books, 2025); America vs the West: Can the Liberal World Order Be Preserved? (Penguin Random House Australia, Lowy Institute, 2018); Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony (Harvard University Press, 2017); State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Hoover Institution Press, 2012); and Managing American Hegemony: Essays on Power in a Time of Dominance (Hoover Institution Press, 2009).
She is also the coeditor, along with former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, of Warriors & Citizens: American Views of Our Military (Hoover Institution Press, 2016).
Dr. Schake has been widely published in policy journals and the popular press, including in CNN.com, Foreign Affairs, Politico, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. She is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and War on the Rocks.
Dr. Schake has a PhD and MA in government and politics from the University of Maryland, as well as an MPM from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. Her BA in international relations is from Stanford University.
Congressman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) serves as the Democratic leader of the House Armed Services Committee, where he is a strong supporter of American military personnel and their families, the heart of our national defense. Ranking Member Smith is committed to providing the people who serve in our armed forces with the best equipment available and necessary support – including food security, housing, education, child care, and health care – to carry out current and future missions. Ranking Member Smith is equally focused on ensuring the Pentagon spends taxpayer dollars in the most efficient and effective manner by carefully examining our defense policies and programs while also working to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse.
Ranking Member Smith has long supported the need for the United States to be able to quickly adapt and evolve in its national security and national defense posture and policies, particularly as it relates to investment and innovation in technology and our defense industrial base. By doing so, the United States will be better equipped to address the pacing challenge presented by China, the acute threat posed by Russia, and the persistent threats presented by North Korea and Iran. He is an ardent advocate for the United States to continue working with partners and allies to deter aggression and defend democracy worldwide, particularly as it relates to Ukraine getting the military and humanitarian assistance it requires in their fight to defend their sovereignty against Putin’s unlawful and unprovoked invasion.
Having served on the House Armed Services Committee since 1997, Ranking Member Smith served as the Chairman of full committee from 2019 to 2023. He formerly chaired the subcommittees on Air and Land Forces and Terrorism and Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, respectively. Ranking Member Smith has also previously served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Understanding the need for a holistic approach to national security and national defense, Ranking Member Smith recognizes the critical importance of addressing the threat posed by climate change as well as pressing social and economic challenges like poverty reduction, access to education, sustainable global markets, diplomatic engagement, and good governance. As such, he has been a long-time advocate of strengthening American diplomacy and development by working with allies and partners to defend the rules-based, international order that the United States has helped to build while also providing for a more resilient national defense.
Congressman Adam Smith represents the Ninth District of Washington State, serving parts of King County including South Seattle, Renton, Bellevue, and Federal Way.
Geoffrey Gertz is a senior fellow with the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and co-host of the Derisky Business podcast. His research focuses on economic tools for protecting and promoting critical technologies; digital policy and data governance; and geoeconomic competition.
Prior to joining CNAS, Gertz served as director for international economics at the White House, jointly appointed to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council, where his portfolio covered emerging technology and digital policy. He also served as senior advisor at the State Department’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, where he covered U.S. diplomatic engagement on digital economy regulations and cross-border data flows.
Before entering government, Gertz was a fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution, a non-resident research associate at the University of Oxford’s Global Economic Governance Programme, and an adjunct professor at George Washington University. He has published widely in both policy and academic publications, including The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, the Review of International Political Economy, International Studies Quarterly, and World Development, and is frequently cited by major media outlets including, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Reuters, PBS, and The Guardian.
He received a DPhil (PhD) and MPhil in international relations from the University of Oxford, and a BA in economics from DePauw University.
John Tilstra is a National Security Partnerships Lead on Anthropic's National Security Policy team. Prior to joining Anthropic, John worked on national security, foreign affairs, and emerging technology issues for the U.S. federal government for approximately 17 years. John studied at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea and the University of Tennessee, where he graduated with a B.A. in both economics and French and began work on his Ph.D. in economics before joining the government. John has lived and worked in Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe. He speaks French and has forgotten how to speak Arabic and Korean.
