The National Security Studies Program (NSSP) features lectures from internationally renowned national security and foreign policy experts. The sessions will involve presentations prepared by the speakers, followed by a discussion period giving participants the opportunity to engage with speakers and their counterparts in a structured settings. Past programs have included, among others, the following speakers:
Michèle Flournoy
Michèle Flournoy is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of WestExec Advisors, and former Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where she currently serves on the board. She served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from February 2009 to February 2012. She was the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the formulation of national security and defense policy, oversight of military plans and operations, and in National Security Council deliberations. She led the development of the Department of Defense’s 2012 Strategic Guidance and represented the Department in dozens of foreign engagements, in the media and before Congress.
Flournoy appears frequently in national and international media, including CNN’s State of the Union, ABC’s This Week, NBC’s Meet the Press, BBC News, NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered and PBS’ News Hour, and is frequently quoted in top tier newspapers. She earned a bachelor’s degree in social studies from Harvard University and a master’s degree in international relations from Balliol College, Oxford University, where she was a Newton-Tatum scholar.
LTG (Ret.) H.R. McMaster
General McMaster was the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. He served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018. From 2014 to 2017 General McMaster designed the future army as the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center and the deputy commanding general of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). As commanding general of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, he oversaw all training and education for the army’s infantry, armor, and cavalry force. His extensive experience leading soldiers and organizations in wartime includes commander of the Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force—Shafafiyat in Kabul, Afghanistan from 2010 to 2012; commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq from 2005 to 2006; and Commander of Eagle Troop, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Operation Desert Storm from 1990 to 1991.
He is author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World and the award-winning Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam. He has published scores of essays, articles, and book reviews on leadership, history, and the future of warfare in many publications including Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. General McMaster was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984. He holds a PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. David Kilcullen
Dr. Kilcullen is a bestselling author, a leading researcher in the field of unconventional and guerrilla warfare, and a former professional soldier and diplomat. He is President and CEO of Cordillera Applications Group, a research and development firm headquartered in Colorado, USA. Before joining Meta, he founded and led Caerus Global Solutions, a strategic R&D firm in Washington DC, and First Mile Geo (now Native.io), a tech platform that enables researchers to rapidly pool and share analysis in austere field environments. He served 25 years as an army officer, diplomat and policy advisor for the Australian and United States governments. In the United States he served as Chief Strategist in the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, and served in Iraq as Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to General David Petraeus, before becoming Special Advisor for Counterinsurgency to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Dr. Kilcullen holds a Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales, with a focus on the political anthropology of guerrilla warfare. He is the author of several bestselling books, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (2009), Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla (2013), Blood Year: The Unraveling of Western Counterterrorism (2016), and The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West (2020), which are used in several universities, as well as by policymakers, the military, intelligence and development agencies worldwide.
Admiral (Ret.) Michelle Howard
Admiral Howard graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1982 and from the Army’s Command and General Staff College in 1998, with a Master’s in Military Arts and Sciences. Howard has achieved many historical firsts throughout her naval career. She was the first African-American woman to command a United States Navy ship, USS Rushmore, and the first to achieve two- and three-star rank. In 2006, she was selected for the rank of rear admiral (lower half), making her the first admiral selected from the United States Naval Academy class of 1982 and the first female graduate of the United States Naval Academy selected for flag rank. On July 1, 2014, Howard was appointed Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
Upon her swearing in, Howard became the highest-ranking woman in United States Naval history. Howard also became the first female four-star admiral to command operational forces, when she assumed command of United States Naval Forces Europe and Naval Forces Africa. Howard retired on December 1, 2017 after nearly 36 years of service in the United States Navy. In 2021, Howard was appointed to The Naming Commission, a congressional commission created to rename U.S. military assets and locations with names associated with the Confederate States of America (CSA), and was sworn in as its chair in March.
Dr. David Rock
Dr. Rock is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and leadership coach who applies neuroscience research to improve leadership and organizational performance. He is Director of the NeuroLeadership Institute, a global initiative bringing neuroscientists and leadership experts together to build a new science for leadership development. With operations in 24 countries, the Institute also helps large organizations operationalize brain research in order to develop better leaders and managers. He co-edits the NeuroLeadership Journal and heads up an annual global summit. He has written many of the central academic and discussion papers defining the NeuroLeadership field. He is the author of the business best seller Your Brain at Work (HarperBusiness, 2009), as well as Quiet Leadership (Harper Collins, 2006) and the textbook Coaching with the Brain in Mind (Wiley & Sons, 2009). He received his Pr. Doc. degree from Middlesex University in 2010.v
Harvey Rishikof
Harvey Rishikof is chair of the Advisory Committee for the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security and serves on the Board of Visitors for the National Intelligence University (NIU). He was a Professor of Law and National Security Studies at the National War College (NWC) in Washington, D.C., and is the former chair of the Department of National Security Strategy at the NWC. He specializes in the areas of national security, civil and military courts, terrorism, international law, civil liberties, and the U.S. Constitution. As Legal Counsel to the Deputy Director of the FBI (1997-99), Mr. Rishikof focused on FBI policies concerning national security and terrorism, and served as liaison to the Office of the Attorney General at the Department of Justice. As Administrative Assistant to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1994-96), Mr. Rishikof, served as chief of staff for the Chief Justice and was involved in general policy issues concerning the federal court system. Rishikof has written numerous law review articles, monographs and book chapters, his most recent book is co-edited with Roger George, The National Security Enterprise, Navigating the Enterprise, (Georgetown Press, 2011). He received his J.D. degree from New York University.
Heather A. Conley
Heather Conley is president of the German Marshall Fund and previously served as senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic and director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Prior to joining CSIS in 2009, she was executive director of the Office of the Chairman of the Board at the American National Red Cross. From 2001 to 2005, she served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau for European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for U.S. bilateral relations with the countries of northern and central Europe. From 1994 to 2001, she was a senior associate with an international consulting firm led by former U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage. Ms. Conley began her career in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. She was selected to serve as special assistant to the coordinator of U.S. assistance to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. Ms. Conley is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Arctic and is frequently featured as a foreign policy analyst on CNN, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, and PBS. She received her B.A. in international studies from West Virginia Wesleyan College and her M.A. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
