Mackinder Forum Virtual Seminar #81: Dr. Jerry Hendrix, “Why the United States Must Become a Seapower State.”
Dr. Jerry Hendrix, (Captain, U.S. Navy, ret. and PhD, Kings College London, War Studies) addressed the Mackinder Forum Seminar on Sunday, July 23, 2023 from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time to give his talk: “Why the United States Must Become a Seapower State.”
Abstract: Dr. Jerry Hendrix will present his reasonings on why, in the current global economic and security environment, the United States should return to his origins as a seapower state. Dr. Hendrix will consider the current economic position of the United States in the global economy that it helped to create and how certain policy decisions in the past have placed the once sole-superpower in a position of economic and security vulnerability.
He will also discuss the nation’s historic and current appreciation of its position in the geo-strategic environment including the strengths and weaknesses of its position regarding great power competition with China and Russia. Lastly, he will sketch out broadly a maritime centered national security strategy that he believes the nation should pursue to regain a defensible equilibrium point within its balance of ends, ways and means.
Biography: Dr. Henry J. “Jerry” Hendrix, PhD is a retired Navy Captain, having served 26 years on active duty following his commissioning through the Navy ROTC program at Purdue University. During his career Hendrix served in a variety of maritime patrol aviation squadrons as well as on supercarriers and light amphibious assault ships. His shore duty assignments were as a strategist on the staffs of the Chief of Naval Operations, the Secretary of the Navy, the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and within the Office of Net Assessment. Through these tours Dr. Hendrix established a reputation for using history to illuminate current strategic challenges.
Following his retirement from the Navy as the Director of the Navy History and Heritage Command, he worked as a senior fellow the Center for a New American Security and as a vice president at a Washington, DC defense consultancy. He recently joined the Sagamore Institute as a Senior Fellow.
Dr. Hendrix holds a bachelor’s degree from Purdue University in political science, a masters in national security affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School, a masters in history from Harvard University, and a PhD in war studies from Kings College, London.