2023 Events

“Geostrategy and Leadership Lessons from the War in Ukraine.”
Colonel Jeffrey McCausland (ret), Ph.D.

Abstract
General Dwight Eisenhower once said that “leadership is deciding what has to be done and then getting others to want to do it.” This is true at every level of leadership – tactical, operational, and strategic. It is true in politics and military affairs as leaders seek to develop strategies for their nations. But it is also true for the leader of any organization no matter how small. In all cases, leaders must match ends and means to be successful. Crises serve as invaluable case studies for both leadership and strategy. During a crisis good leadership as well as bad can be seen more clearly. Consequently, the ongoing war in Ukraine serves even now as an invaluable case study to extract enduring leadership lessons. It is well to recall the wise words of Otto von Bismarck, “only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”

Readings

• Putin Chooses between a Series of Bad Options

Dr. Jeff McCausland is a Visiting Professor at Dickinson College and former Minerva Chairholder, US Army War College. He is a retired Colonel, holds a PhD from the Fletcher School, and is a West Point graduate. Military assignments include the Army Staff; battalion command during the Gulf War; Dean of the Army War College; and Director for Arms Control, NSC Staff, the White House. He has served as a Professor of Leadership at the Naval Academy and Visiting Professor at the Penn State Graduate School of International Affairs. He is also a national security consultant for CBS radio/television and published/lectured broadly both in the US and in numerous foreign countries on national security affairs. In 2020 he published a book, Battle Tested! Leadership Lessons for 21st Century Leaders.

"The Department of Defense and the Prioritization of Great Power Threats: Reframing the 2014-2018 Pivot to Great Power Competition."
Captain Samuel Canter

Abstract
Why did the Department of Defense begin to prioritize Great Power Competition (GPC) during the 2014 – 2018 timeframe? A meta-narrative promulgated in documents like the 2017 National Security Strategy offered a now familiar answer: 25 years of focusing on terrorism, counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, and rogue states coupled with a decline in DoD resources and the rise of Russia and China as military powers finally awakened the U.S. defense establishment to its tenuous position and prompted a policy pivot to ensure American military supremacy. However, a close analysis of this narrative gives reason to seriously question these factors as proximate causes for the timing of the DoD’s embrace of GPC. Indeed, the shift of 2014 – 2018 continues to be misunderstood and misconceptualized in ways that have ongoing defense policy implications. Turning to the history of the DoD itself offers one possible course correction. Identifying and exploring previous periods analogous to the 2014 – 2018 shift can serve to frame the most recent GPC pivot in a new light, and effectively challenge the existing meta-narrative. Moreover, comparatively analyzing these historical case studies suggests that there may be intellectual value for policymakers and scholars in framing great-power threat prioritization within the DoD as an observable, discrete, and recurring phenomenon.

Reading

• Reagan National Defense Forum Keynote
• Intro to the 2017 National Security Strategy

Biography

Sam Canter is a PhD Candidate in Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester, where his dissertation focuses on the Department of Defense, Offset Strategies, and great-power threat prioritization. Previously, he served as an infantry and intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, and as a federal civil servant in the Executive Office of the President. Sam currently works in the private sector as a policy and strategy analyst, where he directly supports and advises U.S. government executive leaders on issues related to defense, intelligence, and international affairs. He also continues to serve as an officer in the Army Reserve, providing strategic intelligence support to the Department of Defense.

“The Return of Multipolarity”
Rodger Baker

Abstract
Rising U.S.-China competition is reviving assertions that the world is heading back into another Cold War. But the Cold War was an anomalous period of modern world history, one that emerged at a particular moment in history, with a world destroyed and ready to be rebuilt, and economic and ideological power concentrated in a small handful of nations. What created the conditions that allowed the bifurcation of the Cold War? What are the similarities and differences today? What strategic challenges and opportunities emerge in a multipolar system? How are these enhanced by modern technological and demographic trends?

Biography

Rodger Baker is the Director of Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics. He has spent more than two decades with Stratfor/RANE where he focused on the Indo Pacific region with special attention to China and the Korean Peninsula. He addresses the strategic dynamics of an evolving world system—looking at great power competition, the role of middle powers, and the impacts of technological, environmental, and demographic changes on geopolitical relationships. His core emphasis is the multidisciplinary approach to geopolitics to develop mid- and long-term forecasts to assist companies, governments, and other globally engaged organization make informed decisions. Rodger is a Senior Fellow at the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations, a Steering fellow for the Mackinder Forum, and teaches a certificate program in Geopolitical Analysis at Florida Atlantic University.

“The War in Ukraine and Russia’s Imperial Legacy.”
Jeffrey Mankoff, Ph.D.

Abstract
While Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine shocked Western observers, it was consistent with a long history of Russian imperial expansion. Failure to grapple with this imperial legacy is one of the main reasons why Russia remains three decades after the Soviet collapse a threat to its neighbors and an opponent of the Western-led global order. The undigested legacy of empire is also a factor in Russia’s alignment with other post-imperial revisionist states, notably China, but also Turkey and Iran. These imperial legacies are visible not just in Russian foreign policy, but in the construction of the state and in the stock of symbols and ideas deployed by the country’s political leadership. Russia’s eventual democratization and transformation into a status quo power would require a forthright effort to account for and overcome these imperial legacies.”

Biography

Dr. Jeffrey Mankoff is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the U.S. National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies and a Non-Resident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). His research focuses on Russian foreign policy, Eurasian geopolitics, and the role of history and memory in international relations. He is the author of the books Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security (Yale, 2022) and Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009, 2012). He also writes frequently for Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks and other outlets.

Dr. Mankoff was previously a senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at CSIS and served as an adviser on U.S.-Russia relations at the U.S. Department of State as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. From 2008 to 2010, he was associate director of International Security Studies at Yale University and an adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He also held the John M. Olin National Security Fellowship at Harvard University (2006-07) and the Henry Chauncey Fellowship at Yale University (2007-08). Dr. Mankoff received undergraduate degrees in international studies and Russian from the University of Oklahoma, and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in diplomatic history from Yale University. He is a Truman National Security Fellow and a past Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

“The Black Sea Region and the Ukraine War in Geopolitical Perspective”
Antonia Colibasanu, Ph.D.

Abstract
The war in Ukraine has become a war of attrition. Usually, a war of attrition is not a prelude to peace, but a prelude to escalation. Besides a kinetic front, there is also an economic front. The intersection between the military and economic fronts will fuel the potential for escalation. The Black Sea region could see dramatic actions and consequences. The Snake Island is little known to the world outside the region, but the island is of genuine strategic importance. This presentation will focus on the Island as a micro-region and then highlight European challenges stemming from the Ukraine war and the Black Sea region. This shift in scale will allow us to discuss several scenarios on the war's evolution and on Europe's next geopolitical challenges.

Readings 

• The Strategic Importance of Snake Island
• Maritime Trade Problems in the Black Sea and Beyond
• Trends That Will Define the Coming Years

Biography

Antonia Colibasanu is Senior Geopolitical Analyst and Chief Operating Officer at Geopolitical Futures. She has published several works on geopolitics and geoeconomics, including "Contemporary Geopolitics and Geoeconomics" and "2022: The Geoeconomic Roundabout". She is also lecturer on international relations at the Romanian National University of Political Studies and Public Administration. She is a senior expert associate with the Romanian New Strategy Center think tank and a member of the Scientific Council of Real Elcano Institute. Prior to joining Geopolitical Futures, Dr. Colibasanu spent more than 10 years with Stratfor in various positions, including as partner for Europe and vice president for international marketing. Prior to joining Stratfor in 2006, Dr. Colibasanu held a variety of roles with the World Trade Center Association in Bucharest. Dr. Colibasanu holds a master’s degree in International Project Management, and she is an alumna of the International Institute on Politics and Economics at Georgetown University. Her doctorate is in International Business and Economics from Bucharest’s Academy of Economic Studies. Her thesis focused on country-level risk analysis and investment decision-making processes by transnational companies.

"Strategic Sequencing: How Great Powers Avoid Multi-Front War"
Francis P. Sempa

Abstract
The United States today is confronted by simultaneous challenges from China in the western Pacific and across Eurasia-Africa, Russia in Eastern Europe, and Iran in the Middle East. Each of the challenges is real and important, but we are not a nation of inexhaustible resources and limitless power. There is a need, therefore, for prioritizing threats, allocating resources, adjusting commitments. There is a need, in other words, for strategy. The featured report on the Marathon Initiative’s website is Strategic Sequencing: How Great Powers Avoid Multi-Front War, a 90-page paper written by A. Wess Mitchell for the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment in September 2020. Mitchell uses the examples of the Byzantine Empire, the Venetian Republic, the Austrian Habsburgs, and Great Britain before the outbreak of World War I to assess how those powers confronted simultaneous challenges to their interests by rival great powers — what he calls the “problem of omnidirectional danger.” It was Walter Lippmann who wrote in the midst of World War II that an effective and competent foreign policy is one that aligns the nation's commitments with its resources. Germany tried and failed to do strategic sequencing in both World Wars--and ended up fighting two-front wars in Europe and bringing the United States into the wars. We did "strategic sequencing" in World War II--we called it a "Europe first" policy--recognizing that Hitler was the greater threat than imperial Japan. Strategic sequencing is necessary for an effective foreign policy both in times of peace and times of war.

Readings

• Strategic Sequencing: How Great Powers Avoid Multi-Front War

Biography

Francis P. Sempa is the author of "Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century," "America's Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics and War," and "Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany: A Combat Soldiers Journey Through the Second World War." He has written lengthy introductions to Mahan's "The Problem of Asia" and "The Interest of America in International Conditions," William Bullitt's "The Great Globe Itself," and Nicholas Spykman's "America's Strategy in World Politics." His articles on history, geopolitics, and foreign policy have appeared in The American Spectator, The Asian Review of Books, the New York Journal of Books, the University Bookman, The National Interest, Real Clear Defense, Real Clear History, and other journals.

“Laying the Groundwork for a US Grand Strategy for the China Challenge”
John Hillen, Ph.D.

Abstract
Over the past few decades, American strategy toward the People’s Republic of China has been all over the map, both literally and figuratively. On the one hand, in some places US interactions with China are oriented toward confrontation. If one were to look only at the US geopolitical and military rivalry with China in East Asia, once could well conclude that the US is in a cold war with China that could well turn hot — mostly over territorial disputes in the region. On the other hand, America’s economic dealings with China are generally focused on cooperation and integration, especially in the commercial sphere. Nongovernmental organizations and the parts of our government that are concerned with human rights and religious freedom rightly condemn China as one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet today. In other areas, ranging from technology to espionage to cyber warfare to asserting global influence, the US maintains that China is a competitor, but it has no comprehensive plan to compete across these and other spheres.

The American government responds to events — haphazardly at times, as it did with the Chinese spy balloon over the country — but its responses are piecemeal and not tied in with a unified strategy. These disjointed moves happen when they happen, often coming out in little dribbles of policy: a new military approach here, a new export-control rule there, a regulatory change from one or another government agency, a tariff or investment or trade restriction, a congressional hearing on this or that topic. Many US actions are not in congruence with each other, so the total effect is limited at best. This incoherence in the US approach to the rivalry with China strengthens its position and weakens America’s. The US should want to correct that fundamental flaw in its grand strategy. In this talk and based on his recent cover piece in National Review magazine, Hillen will offer the outlines of a comprehensive American strategy toward China — not just a list of new policies, but a vision that does not seesaw between confrontation and belligerence, on the one hand, and value-neutral cooperation and accommodation on the other. Rather, the strategy will be integrated, with all the various elements supporting each other, based on a renewal of competitiveness in all manifestations of American power.

Readings

• "The China Speech a President Should Give"

Biography
The Honorable Dr. John Hillen is an award-winning CEO and leadership expert, former Assistant Secretary of State, public intellectual, decorated combat veteran, and professor. He currently serves as the James C. Wheat Professor in Leadership at historic Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia and is the Board chairman or a Director of four companies. Unanimously confirmed by the Senate in 2005, Hillen served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs in the second half of the Bush administration and in that capacity spent much of his time with U.S. and allied troops in war zones from Iraq to Afghanistan to the southern Philippines. He has written or edited several books on international security affairs and has published articles in dozens of journals and newspapers, including Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He has appeared on every major television network and was an on-air commentator for ABC News for a number of years. Hillen, who served for 12 years as an Army reconnaissance officer and paratrooper, was awarded the Bronze Star for his role in the Battle of the 73 Easting during Operation Desert Storm. He recently spent nine years on the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel, the federal advisory committee supporting the head of the U.S. Navy and received the Navy’s Meritorious Public Service Award in 2017. He was the military advisor on the original Call of Duty video game series set in World War II. In 2020 he was inducted into the US Army’s national ROTC hall of fame. Dr. Hillen graduated from Duke University with degrees in public policy studies and history and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship after graduation. He holds a master’s degree in war studies from King’s College London, a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University, and an MBA from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University.

“A Marriage of Convenience, Not of Affection,”
Rodger Baker
Robert Destro, Ph.D.
John Mearsheimer, Ph.D.
Rear Admiral Chris Parry (ret), Ph.D.

Abstract
Was the meeting of Xi and Putin a portent of significant geopolitical change, a punctuation point of changes that had already occurred, or merely a ephemeral event? Some years ago, a geopolitical observer claimed that there are times of "geopolitical transition” when passing events reveal profound structural changes in the international order. The discussants have been asked to address the following questions: What structural changes in the international arena, if any, produced this event? What is the geopolitical significance of this meeting? How should the United States and allies react? What, if any, is the correct geopolitical perspective from which to view this event?

Readings

• The Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation

Panelists

Mr. Rodger Baker, executive director of the Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE, a global center of excellence for geopolitical intelligence and analysis. (For a more complete biography, see https://mackinderforum.org/mackinder-forum-seminar-62-rodger-baker-revisiting-arctic-geopolitics/.)

Dr. Robert Destro, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor from September 2019 to January 2021 and currently Professor of Law at The Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C. (For a more complete biography, see https://mackinderforum.org/mackinder-forum-seminar-58-robert-a-destro-through-a-glass-darkly-reflections-on-the-geopolitics-of-food-insecurity/.)

Dr. John Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago. (For a more complete biography, see https://mackinderforum.org/mackinder-forum-seminar-35-john-mearsheimer-the-new-sino-american-cold-war-versus-the-old-us-soviet-cold-war/.)

Rear Admiral Dr. Chris Parry (UK, ret.) now runs a strategic forecasting and trouble-shooting company, proving accurate assessments to governments, leading commercial companies and financial institutions about geo-political and strategic issues, future trends and systemic risk. (For a more complete biography, see https://mackinderforum.org/mackinder-forum-lecture-1-rear-admiral-dr-chris-parry-ukraine-the-hinge-of-eurasia/).

“The Inevitable, But Not Imminent, Decline of The Dollar.”
David Goldman

Abstract
No alternative to the US dollar as the main world reserve currency exists and none will for the foreseeable future. China would have to eliminate exchange controls and open its capital markets to promote the RMB as an alternative and cannot do so now or any time during the next decade. The fact that the dollar cannot be replaced in any definable time horizon, though, does not mean that all is well. The use of alternatives to the dollar, such as Saudi-Chinese trade in RMB or Russian-Indian trade in rupees, is a non-economic decision that entails higher volatility and transactions costs, but it effectively nullifies the weaponization of the dollar for economic sanctions and erodes the US strategic position. Some of the areas of world trade expanding the fastest are adopting or are likely to adopt alternatives to the dollar, e.g., ASEAN, which is discussing a regional currency clearing arrangement. This development will tend to push developing Asia and other parts of the Global South further into the Chinese sphere of economic influence. The internal strains on the dollar system resulting from the accumulation of thirty years' worth of trade deficits constrain credit expansion in the dollar sphere and may led to downward repricing of US assets. A parallel system of finance is growing that limits American strategic and economic options and gives more opportunity and flexibility to America's competitors.

Biography

David Goldman is Deputy Editor of Asia Times, where he has written the "Spengler" column since 2001. Previously he was an award-winning market strategist and research director at Credit Suisse and Bank of America. From 2013 to 2016 he was a partner at Reorient Group (now Yunfeng Financial), a Hong Kong investment bank. His 2011 book How Civilizations Die addressed the impact of culture, religion, and demographics on world conflicts. His 2020 book You Will Be Assimilated: China's Plan to Sino-Form the World was praised by Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland, who wrote: "If you read just one book about how China plans to make the 21st century theirs and what we can do about it, read You Will Be Assimilated." He contributes to The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Claremont Review of Books, and other publications. He has consulted for the Defense Department's Office of Net Assessment and for the National Security Council.

Readings

• Assessing the Russian and Chinese Economies Geostrategically

Jacques Sapir, born in 1954, is professor of economics at EHESS Paris. He also teaches at the School of Economic Warfare in Paris and at the Moscow School of Economics in Moscow. He worked as a consultant and adviser for the Ministry of Defense in France from 1988 to 2003 and created the Franco-Russian Seminar on Economic Development in 1991, a seminar still in operation today. He also was the chief economist of the TACIS assistance and the advising task-force in Ukraine in 1999-2002.

He has written numerous books on the Soviet economy and then on the Russian economy, as well as numerous scientific articles in French, American, German, British, Japanese, and Russian journals. He received the Castex Prize from the Ministry of Defense in 1988 and the Turgot Prize for Financial Economics in 2002. He has been a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 2016.

“How it ends… Ukraine and the defeat of Russia.”
Lt. General Ben Hodges (ret)

Abstract
General Hodges will describe the current situation, the significance of Bakhmut to the overall conflict, how Ukraine’s counteroffensive might unfold, with specific attention to how Ukraine will liberate the Crimean Peninsula. Further emphasis will be placed on the importance of Western support, the future of Ukrainian security, and how Ukraine fits into a broader strategy for the greater Black Sea region.

Readings

• Ukraine should—and, properly supported, can—seize Crimea, argues Ben Hodges

Lieutenant General (Retired) Ben Hodges, the former Commanding General of US Army Europe, is now Senior Advisor to Human Rights First, a non-profit, nonpartisan international human rights organization based in New York, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles. Prior to joining Human Rights First, he held the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). General Hodges serves as NATO Senior Mentor for Logistics and as Chairman of the GLOBSEC Future Security and Defense Council, he consults for several companies on Europe, NATO, and the European Union, and he is co-author of the book Future War and the Defence of Europe, published by Oxford University Press.

General Hodges graduated from the United States Military Academy in May 1980 and was commissioned as an Infantry Officer in the US Army. After his first assignment as a Lieutenant in Garlstedt, Germany, he commanded Infantry units at the Company, Battalion, and Brigade levels in the 101st Airborne Division, including the First Brigade Combat Team “Bastogne” in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (2003-2004). His other operational assignments include Chief of Operations for Multi-National Corps-Iraq in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (2005-2006) and Director of Operations, Regional Command South in Kandahar, Afghanistan (2009-2010).

General Hodges has also served in a variety of Joint and Army Staff positions to include Chief of Plans, 2nd Infantry Division in Korea; Aide-de-Camp to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe; Chief of Staff, XVIII Airborne Corps; Director of the Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell on the Joint Staff; Chief of Legislative Liaison for the United States Army; and Commander, NATO Allied Land Command 2012-2014 in İzmir, Turkey. His last military assignment was as Commanding General, United States Army Europe in Wiesbaden, Germany from 2014 to 2017. He retired from the U.S. Army in January 2018. Geoff Sloan, my counterpart in the United Kingdom, and I look forward to seeing you on July 9th. Please join us for what should be an informative and significant geostrategic talk and discussion.

“Eurasia’s Front Line and the Art of Strategy”
Seth Cropsey

Abstract
American grand strategy is based on a partnership with a variety of rimland states, in opposition to the powers that seek to revise the Eurasian security system. Yet most formulations of American strategy are negative, insofar as they discuss defending the rimland and containing the revisionists until they collapse. Rather, what is needed is an active posture that undermines the power of the revisionists, using the rimland states to gain greater leverage within the Eurasian heartland. This approach would provide the US with far greater strategic leverage and increase America’s ability to influence adversary decision making throughout Eurasia.

Readings

• America and the Idea of Eurasia

Biography

Seth Cropsey is founder and president of Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy Undersecretary of the Navy. He has authored two books on US naval power and maritime security, Mayday, published in 2014 by The Overlook Press, NYC and London, and Seablindness, How Political Neglect Is Choking American Seapower and What To Do About It, published in 2017 by Encounter Books, NYC and London. He is a member of the Naval War College Press Advisory Board and publishes frequently on strategy, US foreign and security policy, and maritime issues in such major media outlets as Barron's, the Wall Street Journal, and The Hill.

"The Soft Underbelly: Global Supply Chains" 
Ben Skipper, Ph.D.
Trevor Phillips-Levine

Skipper's Abstract
The 1990s marked a shift toward efficiencies and cost savings and away from wasteful practices.  Many of these efforts pushed industry to compete globally for sources of supply and capacity. Lean manufacturing principles coupled with attractive labor costs and subsidies encouraged offshoring. Inventories were considered an expensive waste to be minimized as much as possible. The results were globalized supply chains, precariously balanced with just-in-time delivery of essential goods. The problem is that supply chains grew excessively long and complicated, teetering on the brink of collapse with the slightest upset. When the pandemic hit in 2020, these issues came into sharp focus, with many companies finding their supply chains paralyzed. Since the pandemic, companies have poured resources into understanding their supply chains, pursuing strategies to reduce risk and increase agility. However, such actions are more difficult, and often expensive, than they appear. Reconstructing extended supply chains is not an easy process.

Phillips-Levine Abstract
Defense industries were not immune to globalization. In addition to the heavy consolidation of defense prime contractors in the 1990s to just five majors today, many industries that provided raw materials to defense companies no longer exist within US borders. For example, rare earths, essential elements for magnets and semiconductors, are controlled by China. The US’ only rare-earth mine at Mountain Pass still sends all its ore to China for processing. Such realities are the impetus behind the recent pronouncements from the Raytheon CEO about the inability to decouple from China. Additionally, critical infrastructure like utilities must be considered part of the modern supply chain and are vulnerable to cyber infiltration or sabotage. However, while entanglements wrought by global supply chains carry significant geopolitical risks, they also present opportunities. For example, the Islamic State, Russia, and Ukraine are all heavily dependent on drone supplies from China. Such dependencies present opportunities to shape battlefields by using the free market to interdict supply chains – not through kinetic action like sabotage, but by using capitalism to its fullest potential. Buying up supply artificially constrains the ability of an adversary to deploy its resources at will and scale. Examples of such strategies being employed already exist in business and war. To be prepared, industry and government must go deep "into the rabbit hole” to fully understand their and adversary supply chains.

Readings

• THE ART OF SUPPLY CHAIN INTERDICTION: TO WIN WITHOUT FIGHTING

• Supply Chain Interdiction as a Competitive Weapon

Benjamin Skipper, Ph.D.

Dr. Skipper is the Executive Director, Aerospace & Defense Programs, and a Lecturer in the Department of Supply Chain Management, Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee.  He earned his doctorate in Management from Auburn University and holds an M.S. in Logistics Management from the US Air Force Institute of Technology.  

Dr. Skipper has published work in a variety of management, logistics, and supply chain related journals including the Journal of Business Logistics, the International Journal of Logistics Management, and the International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management.  He has received several teaching and research awards including a best paper award from the International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management.  His current research interests include supply chain disruption and disruption avoidance, supply chain strategy, and supply chain leadership.

Prior to entering academia, Dr. Skipper served for twenty years in the United States Air Force. During this time, he held a variety of logistics positions and commanded one of the US Air Force’s strategic supply chain operations squadrons, responsible for worldwide operational support.

Trevor Phillips-Levine

Trevor Phillips-Levine is an active-duty naval officer and aviator with 16 years of service. He has logged over 2,000 hours in tactical jet aircraft and deployed in support of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the western Pacific.

Trevor has published numerous articles related to defense and strategy at various publishing venues, including War on the Rocks, Center for International Maritime Security, Proceedings, Modern Warfare Institute, and the War Room. He is a Nonproliferation Education Center Space and Nuclear Policy Fellow. He holds an MBA from Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee and is a United States Merchant Marine Academy graduate. His interests include aviation, autonomy, and defense industry supply chains.  

"Colonialism vs. Anthropology:  The 9/11 Conflicts Reconsidered"
General Jonathan Shaw

Abstract
The post 9/11 conflicts have had mixed results. The absence of a repeat of 9/11 is a plus; but it is outweighed by the failures of political reconstruction undertaken in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the damaging consequences that have resulted.

The author was in COBR on 9/11 and was intimately involved in the west’s reaction to 9/11 in a variety of military roles in the field and in Whitehall until retirement in 2012. He observed close up a range of failures: the atrophied state of our ability to do strategy; the failure to understand the nature of the conflicts we were engaged in; the wrong tool being chosen for the task at hand; the application of the wrong mental habits to the novel challenges. Common to all of these was a failure to understand the culture and reality of the countries we were engaged with. The author will suggest that our approach was to impose our solutions on their problems, an essentially colonial approach. He will suggest from his own experience (and T E Lawrence’s) that we could have benefitted from a more anthropological approach, which would have started with the understanding the cultural soil of the foreign country and worked within their art of the culturally possible. To quote the title of a speech he gave in 2008 on return from Iraq, “Don’t Fight the Soil”. He will conclude by suggesting that, as we move from the Atlantic to the Eurasian century (in line with Mackinder’s prediction), the need is for the west to take an anthropological approach to dealing with the rest of the world if our actions are to have any traction and lasting influence.

Biography

Jonathan Shaw read Politics and Philosophy at Trinity College Oxford. After a brief spell in the City, he joined the Parachute Regiment in 1981 in time for the Falklands war in 1982 where he served with 3 PARA. He then went on to serve with the SAS and SBS over a 32-year career that saw him focusing on counter-terrorism and counter insurgency in both operational and staff appointments. His last operational command was as GOC Multinational Division (South East) in Basra Iraq, 2007.

“Eastern Mediterranean as a Shatterbelt Region: Sources of Geopolitical Instability.”

1. Geopolitical significance of Eastern Mediterranean. The Eastern Mediterranean and its surrounding Seas: Black Sea, Adriatic Sea, Aegean Sea, Red Sea, Persian Gulf.
2. Great power competition: US, Russia, China, France
3. Local power competition: Turkey, Greece, Israel, Iran, S. Arabia, Egypt,
4. Local conflicts
5. Competition for energy resources and energy routes
6. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
7. Migratory flows

Biography

"Will China Go to War?"
Gordon G. Chang

Watch the recording on YouTube here.

Biography

Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America, The Coming Collapse of China and China is Going to War.  

Chang lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for almost two decades, most recently in Shanghai, as Counsel to the American law firm Paul Weiss and earlier in Hong Kong as Partner in the international law firm Baker & McKenzie.

His writings on China and North Korea have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, The American Conservative, Commentary, National Review, Barron's, and The Daily Beast. He is a columnist at Newsweek and writes regularly for The Hill.

Chang has appeared before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Chang has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, CNBC, MSNBC, PBS, the BBC, Newsmax, and Bloomberg Television. He is a regular co-host and guest on CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor. Outside the United States he has spoken in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, The Hague, London, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver.

Follow him on X, formerly Twitter,  @GordonGChang

"Proxy Wars Ancient and Modern"
Paul Rahe, Ph.D.

Abstract
Until quite recently, proxy wars have received little attention. They are not the norm, and they can be inconsequential. As I will argue, proxy warfare is especially apt to be employed as an instrument of statecraft when there is a stalemate -- when, for example, there is an enduring strategic rivalry between a sea power and a land power or when there is a nuclear stalemate. Such wars are sideshows, and they are fairly often inconsequential. But they can also have a profound impact. I propose to examine a series of examples with an eye to the question when and under what circumstances can proxy wars be consequential.

Biography

Paul A. Rahe holds The Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at
Hillsdale College, where he is Professor of History. He is the author of Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution (1992), Against Throne and Altar: Machiavelli and Political Theory under the English Republic (2008), Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty: War (2009), Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift (2009), and of six books on ancient Lacedaemon and its grand strategy – including, most recently, Sparta’s First Attic War (2019), Sparta’s Second Attic War (2020), Sparta’s Sicilian Proxy War (2023), and Sparta’s Third Attic War (2024). In 2019, the Mackinder Forum conferred on Sparta’s First Attic War the Strategic Forecasting Book Award for Excellence in Geopolitical Analysis. On 11 April 2022, In recognition of his work on grand strategy, the University of Piraeus in Greece conferred on Professor Rahe its Themistocles Statesmanship Award.

"Israel's War in Gaza -- Where we have been, where we are, and where might we be going?"
Dr. Jeffrey D. McCausland

Watch the recording on YouTube here.

Abstract
On 7 October 2023 Hamas conducted a surprise attack against Israel.  In many ways the failure by the Israeli intelligence services was worse than the onset of the Yom Kippur War or 911.  Hamas fighters quickly penetrated and killed over 1200 Israelis -- many in a horrific fashion.  The dead included men, women, children and the elderly.  Over 240 people were taken hostage and transported to the Gaza Strip.  This included many Americans.  This is the fifth war that Israel has fought with Hamas.  The most recent occurred in 2021 and lasted eleven days.   

This discussion will briefly examine the history of these struggles and the motivation for Hamas to attack at this time.  It will then consider where the war stands and where it might be going in terms of the possibility for escalation and a broader regional war.  The discussion will conclude with how the US, Israel, and the international community might formulate a strategy that will prevent a recurrence in future.

Readings

• Daily Conflict Map
• Beyond the Fighting in Gaza
• Israel will not find security in vengeance
• Institute for the Study of War (ISW) Iran Update
• Underground Nightmare:  Hamas Tunnels and the Wicked Problem Facing the IDF

Dr. Jeff McCausland is the Founder and CEO of Diamond6 Leadership and Strategy, LLC (http://diamondsixleadership.com/).  For the past decade Diamond6 has conducted numerous executive leadership development workshops for leaders in public education, US government institutions, non-profit organizations, and corporations across the United States.  Participants have included the leadership teams for national education associations and large urban school districts representing hundreds of thousands of students throughout America.  In 2020 he published a book, Battle Tested!  Leadership Lessons for 21^st Century Leaders (available at: https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Tested-Gettysburg-Leadership-Lessons/dp/1642934534/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Battle+Tested&qid=1600823775&sr=8-1