Expert Panelists

Dr. Craig L. Symonds is Professor Emeritus at the U.S. Naval Academy where he taught for thirty years and served as History Department Chair.  He also taught at the U.S. Naval War College both as Professor of Strategy (1972-75) and the Ernest J. King Chair of Maritime History (2017-2020) He is the author of seventeen books on the Civil War, Naval History, and World War II, the most recent of which is Nimitz at War (2022). He was the 2023 recipient of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. 

Lunch & Keynote | Red Sky at Morning: The U.S. Navy and the China Challenge

Panel 3 | Global Security in China and the Indo-Pacific Today (Moderator)

Dr. Emma Ashford is a senior fellow at the Reimagining US Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. She previously worked at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Cato Institute. Her work primarily focuses on grand strategy, international security, geoeconomics, and the future of U.S. foreign policy, with a focus on Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. She writes a biweekly column in Foreign Policy and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her most recent book is Oil, the State, and War: The Foreign Policies of Petrostates.

Panel 1 | Global Partnerships and Treaties

Dr. Alexandra Chinchilla is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs and a core faculty member with the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service. She is currently a Non-Resident Fellow with the Irregular Warfare Initiative, a joint production of Princeton’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project and the Modern War Institute at West Point. She previously held fellowships at The John Sloan Dickey Center at Dartmouth College, The Notre Dame International Security Center, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. Her published research examines security assistance, proxy war, NATO, and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Panel 2 | Competition for Foreign Military Sales & Training

Stephen C. Evans (Rear Admiral USN, Retired) is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Flag Bridge Global Solutions, LLC. As a Navy Commander he implemented new digital technologies, helped create diverse Navy innovation initiatives, and led the strategic alignment of Intel, Cyber, and Information grid functions to improve integrated warfighting. As a Corporate Board member, he assists in the oversight of Cyber Security as a part of Enterprise Risk Management.  Additionally, he serves on the Board of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library and South Carolina Institutes of Innovation and Information to coordinate technology initiatives in the states historically black colleges and universities.

Panel 4 | Cyber Security & Artificial Intelligence (Moderator)

Dr. Lyle J. Goldstein joined Defense Priorities as Director of Asia Engagement and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University after 20 years at the Naval War College, where he founded the China Maritime Studies Institute, earning a Superior Civilian Service Medal. Author of seven books, including Meeting China Halfway, as well as numerous articles and podcasts, he investigates the costs of the great power competition with Russia and China, U.S. defense strategy in the Indo-Pacific, military security, and nuclear security. He currently covers key flashpoints on the Korean Peninsula, the South China Sea, the Sino-Indian border, and the boundaries of Taiwan.

Panel 3 | Global Security in China and the Indo-Pacific Today

Dr. Thomas (T.X.) X. Hammes (Col. USMC, Ret.) is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University. His areas of expertise include future conflict, the changing character of war, military strategy, operational concepts, and insurgency. In his thirty years in the Marine Corps, he commanded an intelligence battalion, an infantry battalion, and the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force. He participated in stabilization operations in Somalia and Iraq in addition to training insurgents in various places. Hammes has a Doctorate in Modern History from Oxford University and is the author of three books and over 200 articles.

Panel 4 | Cybersecurity & Artificial Intelligence 

Dr. James Holmes is the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and taught at the University of Georgia. A U.S. Navy surface-warfare officer during the first Gulf War in 1991, he was the last gunnery officer in combat history to fire a battleship’s big guns. As the top graduate in his class, he earned the Naval War College Foundation Award in 1994. His books include Red Star over the Pacific, an Atlantic Monthly Best Book of 2010 and a fixture on the Navy Professional Reading List. General James Mattis deems him “troublesome.”

Panel 1 | Global Partnerships & Treaties

The Honorable John C. (Chris) Inglis (Brig. Gen., USAF, Ret.) is a Visiting Professor of cyber studies at the U.S. Air Force and Naval Academies, a senior advisor to Hakluyt and Company, a member of the Huntington Bancshares Board, the U.S. Navy Science and Technology Board, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity Advisory Council. He served in the White House as the first U.S. National Cyber Director, a Commissioner on the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and the Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the National Security Agency. His military career includes thirty years of commissioned service in the US Air Force and Air National Guard from which he retired as a Brigadier General and command pilot.

Panel 4 | Cyber Security & Artificial Intelligence 

Dr. Renanah Joyce is an Assistant Professor of Politics at Brandeis University. Before academia, she was an analyst in the Department of Defense. Her research agenda encompasses security cooperation, the political economy of power projection, and great power competition in contemporary international politics. Her upcoming book examines the effectiveness of security assistance as a tool of influence in U.S. foreign policy. Joyce’s work is published or forthcoming in Perspectives on Politics, Security Studies, International Security, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of the Middle East and Africa, Political Science Quarterly, The Washington Quarterly and The National Interest.

Panel 2 | Competition for Foreign Military Sales & Training

Dr. Sean N. Kalic lectures and publishes widely on topics such as U.S. space policy, the Cold War and the post-Cold War security environment, the Russian Revolution, Al Qaeda, and transnational terrorism. He has taught at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College since 2004 and is a former Assistant Dean. Prior to CGSC, he taught at Youngstown State University, Kansas State University, and Norwich University. He presented lectures for the U.S. Navy War College’s Fleet Seminar Program, the Slovenian General Staff, the Slovenian Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Futures Command, as well as numerous international conferences.

Panel 1 | Global Partnerships & Treaties

Dr. Jahara "Franky" Matisek (Lt. Col. USAF) is a military professor at the U.S. Naval War College, Air Force command pilot with 3,700 hours flight time, and fellow at the European Resilience Initiative Center.  He taught and researched at leading institutes including the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Modern War Institute, Homeland Defense Institute, AFWERX, DOD Minerva, and U.S. Air Force Academy. He is the author of Old and New Battlespaces and over 100 articles on strategy, warfare, security force assistance, and African politics. In 2020, he was a Bronze Star recipient for serving as director of operations and commander of the 451st Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron in Afghanistan.

Panel 2 | Competition for Foreign Military Sales & Training

Dr. Paul Poast is an associate professor at the University of Chicago, a non-resident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a foreign affairs commentator, and author of numerous articles and books including The Economies of War and Arguing About Alliances, earning a Bruce Russett Award and the Lepgold Prize. Poast studies international politics, focusing on international security, diplomacy, and the use of data to study international relations. He authors articles for World Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Political Analysis, and The American Journal of Political Science. As a foreign affairs commentator, he appears on global news outlets and forums.

Panel 1 | Global Partnerships & Treaties (Moderator)

Dr. William Reno is professor and chair of the Political Science Department at Northwestern University and the principal investigator of the U.S Department of Defense’s Minerva research project on improving foreign military training. For over 30 years he has conducted fieldwork and interviews in conflict zones across Africa, the Middle East, and now Ukraine. He has written over 100 articles on civil war, rebels, and military assistance and three books: Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone, Warlord Politics and African States, and Warfare in Independent Africa. Reno also served as a non-resident Fellow at the Modern War Institute.

Panel 2 | Foreign Military Sales and Training (Moderator)

Phil Susmann is the President of Norwich University Applied Research Institutes (NUARI), a research and development organization focused on cybersecurity, defense technologies, information advantage, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. He taught in the business school at Norwich University before becoming the university’s first chief information officer in 1994. In December 2022, Phil was appointed by Vermont Governor Scott to the State's new Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council. He developed the cybersecurity programs, National Security Agency certification, the National Center for the Study of Counter Terrorism and Cybercrime, and the Department of Defense Senior Military Colleges Cyber Institutes at Norwich.

Panel 4 | Cyber Security & Artificial Intelligence

Dr. Geoffrey Till is the Advisor and Visiting Professor, Maritime Security Programme, RSIS Singapore; Emeritus Professor of Maritime Studies at King’s College, London; and Non Resident Research Fellow at the U.S. Naval War College. He has taught at over 60 academic and defense organizations worldwide, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. Specializing in maritime strategy and defense policy, Till has written 29 books and edited numerous publications, including the Cass Naval Policy and History series; Seapower: A Guide for the 21st Century; Asia’s Naval Expansion: An Arms Race in the Making; Maritime Cooperation and Security in the Indo-Pacific Region; and, most recently, How to Grow a Navy: The Development of Maritime Power. The U.S. Naval College's Hattendorf Prize acknowledges his lifetime contributions to military scholarship.

Panel 3 | Global Security in China and the Indo-Pacific Today

Christopher J. Wehri (Col. U.S. Army), is currently a Visiting Military Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, he previously served on the Joint Staff as the Deputy Director for Politico-Military Affairs for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, and as Eighth Army’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Plans and Policy. His 25-year career began as a Cavalry officer, and he has served in the U.S., Middle East, Europe, and Asia. He has three combat tours to Iraq and Afghanistan and was awarded the General Douglas Macarthur Award. As a Army Strategist, he now serves at the top of the defense enterprise, including NATO, and focuses on policy, strategy, and plans. 

Panel 3 | Global Security in China and the Indo-Pacific Today

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