Radicalization

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Lieutenant General Michael K. Nagata

Lieutenant General (R) Michael K. Nagata served as the Former Director of Strategic Operational Planning for the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center. He is a distinguished senior fellow on national security with the Middle East Institute. 

Lieutenant General Nagata initially served as a Platoon Leader in the 2d Infantry Division before volunteering for Army Special Forces in 1984. Throughout his career, he served in various positions within Army Special Forces to include Detachment Commander, Executive Officer, Battalion S-3, Operations Center Director, BN Executive Officer, and Group Operations Officer. Later, he served as the Commander of 1st BN, 1st Special Warfare Training Group, responsible for the Special Forces Qualification Course. In 1990, he volunteered and assessed for a Special Missions Unit (SMU), in which he served at various times throughout his career as a Troop Commander, Operations Officer, Squadron Commander, and SMU Commander. After graduating from the National War College, Lieutenant General Nagata served in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and within the Intelligence Community as a Deputy Director for Counter Terrorism. As a general officer, he has served as the Deputy Chief, Office of the Defense Representative to Pakistan (ODRP), the Deputy Director for Special Operations and Counter Terrorism (J-37) of the Joint Staff, and Commander, SOCCENT. Read more. 

PLENARY SPEAKER

Mr. Robert C. Jones

Robert Jones is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel; a former Deputy District Attorney; and the senior strategist at U.S. Special Operations Command.  Currently serving as a member of the SOCOM J5 Donovan Strategic Initiatives Group, Mr. Jones is responsible for leading innovative thinking on the strategic environment and how it impacts factors critical to national security; such as the evolving character of conflict, deterrence in competition and societal stability.  He also serves as the Strategic Advisor to the Director of Plans, Policy and Strategy.

Mr. Jones is a featured lecturer for the JSOU Enlisted Academy on strategy, the evolving character of conflict, impact on viability of solutions, and implications for SOF. The Air War College also brings in Mr. Jones to address each class during their operational design phase to discuss the art of creative thinking in the context of design.  He is currently promoting concepts and courses of action rooted in the principles of insurgency and unconventional warfare intended to revolutionize SOF operationalization of the National Defense and National Military Strategies. His focus is the pursuit of understanding, and the provision of context. 

"If war is the final argument of Kings, then revolution is the final vote of the people.” RCJ

LTG (R) Karen Gibson

Lieutenant General Karen H. Gibson entered the Army in 1986 as a Distinguished Military Graduate of Purdue University’s ROTC program, commissioning into the Military Intelligence Corps. She currently serves as the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for National Security Partnerships at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

LTG Gibson has served in a variety of joint and operational intelligence duty assignments in the United States, Middle East, Afghanistan, Africa, and Korea and has commanded at the company, battalion, and brigade levels. She most recently served as Director, J2, U.S. Central Command; Director, CJ2, Combined Joint Task Force-OPERATION INHERENT RESOLVE; Deputy Commanding General for U.S. Army Cyber Command’s Joint Force Headquarters; and Director, CJ2, Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa. Her awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters, Legion of Merit with one oak leaf cluster, Bronze Star Medal, and various other medals. She is authorized to wear the Parachutist, Air Assault, Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification and Army Staff badges. Read more.

Dr. Mohsen Milani

Founding Executive Director of the Center for Strategic & Diplomatic Studies and professor of politics at the University of South Florida, served as Chair of the Department of Government and International Affairs at USF for thirteen years.

During his tenure as Chair, the department began a new Ph.D. program in Governance. Milani was a research fellow at Harvard University, Oxford University, and the Foscari University in Venice, Italy. 

Since 2000, he has been invited to 200 conferences in 27 countries. Both private and governmental entities solicit his advice. Read more. 

Dr. Nikolay Kozhanov

Nikolay is leading a project on Russia’s policy in the Middle East for Chatham House, having previously been the 2015 Academy Robert Bosch Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme.

He is also currently an associate research professor in the geopolitics of energy at the Gulf Studies Center of Qatar University. Read more. 

Dr. Maorong Jiang

Dr. Maorong Jiang is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations and Director of the Asian World Center at Creighton University. Previously, he was military officer and faculty member at the Military College of International Relations. He served as a university administrator and government official in Beijing.  Most recently, he was selected by the Japan government to participate in its building a Multi-layered Network of Influential Figures Program.  Currently, he serves as a member of the U.S. Strategic Command Deterrence and Assurance Academic Alliance, member of International Board of Advisory for the India-based Anuvrat Global Organization, member and treasurer of the Governing Council of the Hawaii-based Center for Global Nonkilling, board member of the Omaha Sister Cities Association, and board member of the Nebraska State Council for the Social Studies. Read more. 

Dr. Jennifer Jefferis

Dr. Jennifer Jefferis is a Teaching Professor at Georgetown and Director of Curriculum at the Security Studies Program in the School of Foreign Service. Her research focuses on religion and political violence. She has authored Hamas: Terrorism, Governance, and its Future in the Region; Religion and Political Violence: Sacred Protest in the Modern World; and Armed for Life: Anti-Abortion Politics in the United States as well as several articles on religion and violence.

As a professor at NESA, Dr. Jefferis developed security-related programs for government and civilian leaders in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinian Territories, and Israel. She was associate professor of Security Studies at the National Defense College of the United Arab Emirates, served as the Associate Dean of Academics at the College of International Security Affairs in Washington D.C., and a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations. Read more.

Dr. Hassan Abbas

Dr. Abbas is Professor of International Security Studies and Chair of the Department of Regional and Analytical Studies at National Defense University's College of International Security Affairs. He served as a Carnegie Fellow 2016-2017 at New America, where he is focused on a book project on Islam's internal struggles and spirituality narrated through the lens of his travels to Islam's holy sites across the world.

He serves as a Senior Advisor at Asia Society and was a Senior Advisor at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and the Distinguished Quaid-i-Azam Chair Professor at Columbia University before joining CISA. He regularly appears as an analyst on media, including CNN, ABC, BBC, C-Span, Al Jazeera, and GEO TV (Pakistan) and is well published on violence and extremism. Read more.

Dr. Alexsandra (Aleks) Nesic

Dr. Aleksandra (Aleks) Nesic serves as a visiting Senior Social Scientist and Teaching Faculty at the US Army’s J.F.K. Special Warfare Center and School, where she develops and teaches new courses in the advanced interdisciplinary science of the human domain. She is also a Visiting Faculty in the Countering Violent Extremism and Combatting Transregional Terrorism Fellowship Programs at the Joint Special Operations University (USSOCOM), Tampa, FL., a Senior Lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute at the U.S. Department of State, and a founding partner and Senior Researcher at Valka-Mir Human Security, LLC, currently working with a Hollywood production company on an Artificial Intelligence/Virtual Realty project to advance the development of conflict scenarios for pre-deployment training of US and UK SOF.

Dr. Nesic’s ongoing research examines the formation and spread of violent extremist ideologies employed by various state and non-state actors, influence operations, recruitment strategies, as well as the development of psychological resilience mechanisms for individuals and communities vulnerable to extremist recruitment. Her most recent field research has been in eastern European communities facing Russian hybrid warfare, and in refugee camps in Cypress, Greece and Jordan where she trained police, security forces and social workers on psychosocial dimensions of war trauma and violence prevention.

Dr. Gawdat Bahgat

Dr. Gawdat Bahgat is professor of National Security Affairs at the National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Study. He is an Egyptian-born specialist in Middle Eastern policy, particularly Egypt, Iran, and the Gulf region. His areas of expertise include energy security, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, counter-terrorism, Arab-Israeli conflict, North Africa, and American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Bahgat’s career blends scholarship with national security practicing. Before joining NESA in December 2009, he taught at different universities. Bahgat published twelve books including Security and Bilateral Issues between Iran and Its Arab Neighbors (2016), Energy Security in the Gulf (2015), Alternative Energy in the Middle East (2013), Energy Security (2011), International Political Economy (2010), Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East (2007), Israel and the Persian Gulf (2006), and American Oil Diplomacy (2003). Bahgat’s articles have appeared in International Affairs, Middle East Journal, Middle East Policy, Oil and Gas Journal, and OPEC Review, among others. His work has been translated to several foreign languages.

Bahgat served as an advisor to several governments and oil companies. He has more than 25 years of academic, policy and government experience working on Middle Eastern issues. Bahgat has contributed to CNN, BBC, Washington Post and Al-Jazeera. He has spoken at Tufts University, Columbia University, London School of Economics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Swiss Foreign Ministry, Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, Qatar University, Kuwait University, Oman Diplomatic Institute, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (Saudi Arabia), Griffith University (Australia), India School of Business (Hyderabad, India), Institute of Military-Aeronautic Sciences (Florence, Italy), University of Viterbo, (Rome, Italy), and Institute for International Political Studies (Milan, Italy).

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Maj. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich

Maj. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich is the Director of Operations, U.S. Central Command. In this role, he is responsible for developing contingency plans and assisting the commander with overseeing joint operations across a 20-nation area of responsibility covering Central and Southwest Asia.

Maj. Gen. Grynkewich received his commission in 1993 after graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy. He has served as an instructor pilot, weapons officer and operational test pilot in the F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-22 Raptor. Maj. Gen. Grynkewich has commanded at the squadron, wing and Air Expeditionary Task Force levels, and his staff assignments include service at Air Combat Command, U.S. European Command, Headquarters Air Force, and the Joint Staff. Prior to his current assignment he served as the Deputy Commander for Operations for Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve.

PLENARY SPEAKER

LTG. (R) Karen Gibson

Lieutenant General (R) Karen Gibson currently serves as the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for National Security Partnerships at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

She has served in a variety of joint and operational intelligence duty assignments in the United States, Middle East, Afghanistan, Africa, and Korea and has commanded at the company, battalion, and brigade levels. She most recently served as Director, J2, U.S. Central Command; Director, CJ2, Combined Joint Task Force-OPERATION INHERENT RESOLVE; Deputy Commanding General for U.S. Army Cyber Command’s Joint Force Headquarters; and Director, CJ2, Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa. Her awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters, Legion of Merit with one oak leaf cluster, Bronze Star Medal, and various other medals. She is authorized to wear the Parachutist, Air Assault, Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification and Army Staff badges. Read more.

Dr. Gregory Seese

Gregory Seese, Psy.D, is a senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and Commander of the 11th Psychological Operations (PSYOP) Battalion.  He has more than 25 years of combined active and reserve military experience with expertise in the planning and operational conduct of PSYOP, Information Operations, Military Deception, and Civil Affairs activities.  He has provided direct support to both Conventional and Special Operations Forces, worked in Department of State, Joint, Interagency, and multi-national environments with deployments to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf. Dr. Seese most recently served as the senior PSYOP Unconventional Warfare exercise planner for the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), and prior to that was the PSYOP Division Chief in the USASOC G39.  Previous positions include Chief of Behavioral Sciences at the Tribal Engagement Coordination Cell in the Office of Security Cooperation at the US Embassy in Iraq, Director of Plans at the Joint Information Support Task Force in Qatar, and a variety of assignments in the 6th Psychological Operations Battalion, and the 1st Special Warfare Training Group.

Dr. Seese’s current efforts include developing and implementing innovative solutions for the Department of Defense, Department of State, and Interagency to leverage Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning to detect and counter malign influence efforts at machine speed.

Dr. Les Grau

Dr. Lester W. Grau is a Senior Analyst for the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has served the U.S. Army for 52 years, retiring as an infantry Lieutenant Colonel and continuing service through research and teaching in Army professional military education. His on-the-ground service over those decades spanned from the Vietnam War to Cold War assignments in Europe, Vietnam, Korea, and the Soviet Union to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As one of the U.S. Army’s leading Russian military experts, he has conducted various assignments in Russia including collaborative research with the Russian General Staff’s Military History Institute and with other Russian military officials.  He has also conducted collaborative research in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and with numerous organizations in Europe.

Dr. Grau is the author of 18 books and 250 articles and studies on tactical, operational and geopolitical subjects, translated into several languages.  His book, The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan and The Other Side of the Mountain:  Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War, co-authored with former Afghan Minister of Security Ali Jalali, remain the most widely distributed, U.S. government-published books throughout the long conflict in Afghanistan.

Dr. Andrea Dew

Professor Andrea J. Dew is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy and also holds the Chair of Maritime Irregular Warfare Forces. She lived in Japan for eight years where she studied advanced Japanese at the Kyoto Japanese Language School. Professor Dew has served as a Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science in International Affairs at Harvard University, and Senior Counter-Terrorism Fellow at the Jebsen Center for Counter Terrorism Studies at the Fletcher School. Dr. Dew is the founding Co-Director of the Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups at the US Naval War College. Read more. 

Ms. Leila Golestani

Ms. Golestani has significant experience as a former Iran Advisor to the USSOCOM Commander. 

MODERATOR 

Dr. Larry Kuznar

Dr. Kuznar specializes in the ecological and economic features of traditional pastoral societies. He has performed extensive research among Aymara herders in southern Peru and is currently working with Navajo sheepherders and cattle ranchers. He has published articles in anthropological journals such as American Anthropologist, Current Anthropology, Human Ecology, Journal of Quantitative Anthropology, Nomadic Peoples, Mountain Research and Development, Chungara, Dialogo Andino, Journal of World Systems Research, and Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Social Sciences. In addition to his ethnographic research, Dr. Kuznar has conducted ethnoarchaeological studies among pastoralists and published a book on his research entitled Awatimarka: The Ethnoarchaeology of an Andean Community. 

Dr. Yaneer Bar Yam

Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam holds an SB and Ph.D. in physics from MIT. Since the late 1980s he has contributed to founding the field of complex systems science, introducing fundamental mathematical rigor, real world application, and educational programs for new concepts and insights of this field. His recent work quantitatively analyzes the origins and impacts of market crashes, social unrest, ethnic violence, military conflict and pandemics, the structure and dynamics of social networks, as well as the bases of creativity, panic, evolution and altruism. He has advised the U.S. Government on global social unrest and the crises in Egypt and Syria, counterterrorism strategies, military force transformation, market regulation, delivery of disease prevention services and control of hospital infections. He regularly advises NGOs and corporations regarding their use of complex systems science. He has authored more than 200 journal articles. His work on the causes of the global food crisis was cited among the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2011 by Wired magazine. International coverage of his work includes The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Die Zeit, and Le Monde, among others. Read more.

Dr. Haroro J. Ingram

Dr. Haroro J. Ingram is a senior research fellow with George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. His research primarily focuses on the role of propaganda and charismatic leadership in the evolution and appeal of violent non-state political movements; militant Islamist propaganda targeting English-speaking audiences; and the role of strategic communications in national security operations, strategy and policy, particularly in the areas of counterterrorism and countering violent extremism. Ingram’s work draws heavily on primary source materials, most of which is collected during field research in countries across the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. He currently runs several in-country applied research projects in these regions mostly focused on enhancing civil society CVE capabilities. Ingram’s research has been published in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Australian Journal of Political Science, RUSI Journal, Australian Journal of International Affairs, War on the Rocks, The Atlantic, The National Interest and The Washington Post amongst others.

He has been a visiting fellow with institutions such as the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (The Hague), the Naval Postgraduate School’s Defense Analysis Department (Monterey) and the Australian National University’s Department of International Relations (Canberra). A former national security practitioner, Ingram regularly consults across government, private and civil society sectors. 

Lt. COL Christopher Forrest

Lieutenant Colonel Christopher D. Forrest, Indo-Pacific Division Chief, Headquarters Air Force CHECKMATE, Pentagon, leads a team of air-power strategists to provide the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Chief of Staff of the Air Force best military advice on current and near-term operations and strategy. His portfolio entails assessment, operational planning support, lethal and non-lethal effect integration, clean-sheet strategy and concept development for the China and North Korea problem sets. His recent work involves a deep-dive project on Great Power competition and competitive strategy. Prior to his assignment at CHECKMATE, Lt Col Forrest served as the Chief of Strategy and Plans and Chief of Targeting at the 613th Air Operations Center, HQ Pacific Air Forces, Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam, Hawaii. In his role as Chief of Strategy and Plans, Lt Col Forrest conducted operational planning, Concept of Operations development, and strategy for the Commander, Pacific Air Forces and Theater Joint Force Air Component Commander to CDRUSINDOPACOM. In his role as Chief of Targeting, Lt Col Forrest was responsible for targeting strategy, cyber/non-lethal effects integration, and operational-level planning for INDOPACOM operational and contingency plans.