Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret)

Admiral James Stavridis is Partner and Vice Chair, Global Affairs of The Carlyle Group and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, following five years as the 12th Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.  A retired 4-star officer in the U.S. Navy, he led the NATO Alliance in global operations from 2009 to 2013 as Supreme Allied Commander with responsibility for Afghanistan, Libya, the Balkans, Syria, counter piracy, and cyber security.  He also served as Commander of U.S. Southern Command, with responsibility for all military operations in Latin America from 2006-2009.  He earned more than 50 medals, including 28 from foreign nations in his 37-year military career.

Earlier in his military career he commanded the top ship in the Atlantic Fleet, winning the Battenberg Cup, as well as a squadron of destroyers and a carrier strike group – all in combat.  In 2016, he was vetted for Vice President by Hillary Clinton and subsequently invited to Trump Tower to discuss a cabinet position in the Trump Administration.

Admiral Stavridis earned a PhD in international relations and has published fifteen books and hundreds of articles in leading journals around the world, including the recent novel “2034: A Novel of the Next World War,” which was a New York Times bestseller and “To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and The Crucible of Decision.”  His most recent book “The Restless Wave: A Novel of the United States Navy” was published in October 2024. His 2012 TED talk on global security has close to one million views.  Admiral Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and Senior Military Analyst for CNN.

Dr. Heidi Hardt

Prof. Heidi Hardt is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine and a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council via their Transatlantic Security Initiative. Her research examines NATO, European security and defense and international organizations. Issue areas include alliance politics, crisis management, collective defense, military operations (e.g. Afghanistan), climate security, strategy, learning, adaptation, change, gender (e.g. WPS, DEI) and political and military decision-making. Prof. Hardt is the author of two books: NATO’s Lessons in Crisis: Institutional Memory in International Organization ​ and Time to React: The Efficiency of International Organizations in Crisis Response (Oxford University Press, 2014). The NSF, Fulbright, NATO, Carnegie and the IGCC have funded her research, and she has published in numerous books and journals, including the Journal of Politics, PS: Political Science & Politics, European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Organizations, European Security, Global Governance, International Politics, African Security, Journal of Global Security Studies, Contemporary Security Policy, PLOS One, among other venues.​  Previously, she has been a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow (CFR-IAF TIRS), during which time she worked for the NATO Desk at the US State Department, for a US Senator and a US Congresswoman. She has also been a Fulbright Schuman Scholar at the European University Institute in Florence. She is on the executive board of the World Affairs Council of Orange County.