Ambassador Louise V. Oliver previously served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) from February 2004 to January 2009. She is now a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., a member of the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, and a director of the Council of American Ambassadors.
As the first U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO in twenty years, Ambassador Oliver was responsible for rebuilding the U.S. Mission as well as for the entire U.S. reengagement with UNESCO and its 192 member states. In order to advance U.S. programmatic and policy initiatives at UNESCO, she worked with numerous departments and agencies of the U.S. government including the Departments of State, Education, Energy, Commerce, Health and Human Services, and Interior. She also worked closely with the National Security Council, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Library of Congress, as well as with numerous nonprofit organizations.
Matthew Bryza just completed a 23-year career as a U.S. diplomat, over half of which was spent at the center of policy-making and international negotiations on major energy infrastructure projects and regional conflicts in Eurasia. His most recent assignment was as U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan from February 2011 to January 2012. Between 2005 and 2009, Bryza served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, with responsibility for Eurasian Energy, the South Caucasus, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. Bryza simultaneously served as the U.S. Co-Chair of the OSCE’s Minsk Group mediating the Karabakh conflict, and as U.S. mediator of the Cyprus, South Ossetia and Abkhazia conflicts. From 2001 to 2005, Bryza served in the White House as Director for European and Eurasian Affairs on the National Security Council Staff. His responsibilities included Eurasian energy, the South Caucasus, Central Asia and political Islam in Eurasia. Previous assignments include Deputy to the Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Caspian Energy, Advisor on Economic Reform in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and Russia Desk Officer at the State Department, as well as Political Officer at the U.S. Missions to Russia (1995-97) and Poland (1989-91). Currently Ambassador Bryza resides in Istanbul, Turkey, where he also works as a consultant on business and democratic development and is a board member of several private companies.
Arthur Waldron has been the Lauder Professor of International Relations in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania since 1997. He works mostly on the history of Asia, specializing in China, the problem of nationalism, and the study of war and violence in history. Professor Waldron was educated at Harvard (A.B. ’71 summa cum laude Valedictorian, PhD ’81) and in Asia where he lived for four years before returning to Harvard. He previously taught at Princeton University, the U.S. Naval War College (Newport, RI) and Brown University. His publications include The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth (1989) also in Chinese and Italian; The Modernization of Inner Asia (1991); How the Peace Was Lost: The 1935 Memorandum "Developments Affecting American Policy in the Far East" Prepared for the State Department by John Van Antwerp MacMurray (1992) also in Japanese; From War to Nationalism: China’s Turning Point, 1924-1925 (1995) also in Chinese, and (with Daniel Moran) The People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilization since the French Revolution (2003). In addition he has fourteen articles in peer reviewed journals, ten chapters in books, and two edited volumes in Chinese, as well as numerous scholarly and popular reviews and journalistic essays.
Professor Waldron served as one of twelve members of the highly-classified Tilelli Commission (2000-2001), which evaluated the China operations of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was also an original member of the Congressionally-mandated U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission (2001-2003). He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former Director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. A regular traveler, he has visited some fifty countries in Asia and beyond. He has lectured all over the world, including Europe, Russia (in Russian), Japan, and Australia. Born in Boston in 1948 Professor Waldron married the former Xiaowei Yü (Born Beijing) in 1988. With their two sons they live in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania.
David R. Stilwell served as the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP) between 2019 and 2021. A seasoned leader in the foreign policy world, he was also the Asia Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during his time in the Air Force. Stilwell was a member of the Air Force for 35 years and served multiple tours in Korea and Japan as a linguist, a fighter pilot, and a commander. He enlisted in 1980 and retired in 2015 with the rank of Brigadier General. During this period, he served as the Defense Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 2011 to 2013 and directed the China Strategic Focus Group at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii from 2017 to 2019. As the Assistant Secretary for EAP, Stilwell was a strong advocate for dealing with the People’s Republic of China from a position of strength. In his role as the top U.S. diplomat for Asia, he also actively fostered relationships with traditional allies as well as members of ASEAN—establishing Peace Corps in Vietnam, updating South China Sea policy to support Manila’s successful defense of its and other ASEAN claimant’s EEZs, and establishing a Mekong downstream water rights conference.
Currently one of The Jamestown Foundation's Board Members, US Air Force Brigadier General (ret) Robert Spalding is the former White House National Security Council senior director for strategic planning and served in senior positions of strategy and diplomacy within the Defense and State Departments for more than 26 years. General Spalding is the founder and CEO of SEMPRE. The SEMPRE micro datacenter ensures access to data—anytime, anywhere, in even catastrophic conditions—by offering high-performance edge computing and diverse, secure communications, including 5G, all in a tamper-resistant, EMP-hardened enclosure.
Professor Bruce Hoffman has been studying terrorism and insurgency for over four decades. He is a tenured professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and the Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis Visiting Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Securityat the Council on Foreign Relations. Professor Hoffman co-founded and was the first director of St Andrews University’s Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, where he is also visiting Professor of Terrorism Studies. He is currently the Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis Visiting Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations. Professor Hoffman previously held the Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation and was appointed by the U.S. Congress as a commissioner on the 9/11 Review Commission. He has been Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency; adviser on counterterrorism to the Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq; and, adviser on counterinsurgency to Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad, Iraq. His most recent books include Inside Terrorism(3rdedition, 2017); Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947 (2015), which was named Jewish Book of the Year for 2015 and also won the Washington Institute’s Gold Medal for the best book on Middle East politics, history, and culture published in 2015; and, The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat (2014).
Carol Rollie Flynn is President Emerita of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A thirty-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Ms. Flynn held senior executive positions including Director of CIA’s Leadership Academy, Director of the Office of Foreign Intelligence Relationships, Associate Deputy Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Executive Director of the CIA Counterterrorism Center, and Chief of Station in major posts in Southeast Asia and Latin America. She has extensive experience in overseas intelligence operations, security, and counterintelligence.
Ms. Flynn was also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service/Security Studies Program where she co-directed the National Security Critical Issue Task Force, which conducted research on Lone Wolf Terrorism, Countering Violent Extremism, and Insider Threat. She has also taught at the Fordham University Graduate School of Business and served as Adjunct Staff at Rand Corporation. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Ms. Flynn has a BA from Wellesley College and an MS in Cyber Security from the University of Maryland/University College. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the International Spy Museum.
Board Member
Gen. Philip M. Breedlove (Ret.) is a proven strategic planner, motivational leader and talented communicator. He is a highly decorated retired general of the U.S. Air Force where he reached the highest levels of military leadership as one of six geographic combatant commanders and the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. During 39 years of service, General Breedlove served in a variety of demanding command and staff positions, leading large-scale, diverse, global operations across two theaters of combat and earning a reputation as an inspirational leader focused on his people, their families and mission accomplishment. Leading a diverse political- military alliance, he was able to build consensus and form teams to accomplish complex tasks spanning multiple continents.
As the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the Commander of U.S. European Command, he answered directly to NATO’s governing body, the North Atlantic Council, and to the President of the United States and Secretary of Defense. He led the most comprehensive and strategic structural and policy security changes in the alliance’s 70-year history. His diplomatic skills reassured allies, deterred potential aggressors and maintained alliance unity during the most dynamic and challenging period since its inception. He led the forces of 28 nations and multiple partners in ensuring the security of an alliance that accounts for more than half the world’s gross domestic product.
As Commander, U.S. Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, General Breedlove was responsible for organizing, training, equipping and maintaining combat-ready forces while ensuring theater air defense forces were ready to meet the challenges of peacetime air sovereignty and wartime defense. This diverse portfolio included both theater and operational air and ballistic missile defense, areas where his operational designs remain in place today.
As Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, he presided over the Air Staff and served as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Requirements Oversight Council and Deputy Advisory Working Group during a period of intense challenge, including devising measures to meet the requirements of the Budget Control Act’s required $480 billion reduction of the Department of Defense budget. Accordingly, he led the organization, training and equipping of more than 690,000 people serving in the U.S. Air Force and provided oversight of its $120 billion annual budget.
