New Perspectives on How to Defend the Baltic States
The Jamestown Foundation and Oxford University’s Changing Character of War Centre are proud to present “New Perspectives on How to Defend the Baltic States,” a multi-panel discussion of the military, political and civil-military issues that the NATO alliance needs to address in order to more credibly secure its northeastern flank. The half-day event will feature key U.S. and Allied military voices, including former ISAF Commander General (ret.) John Allen and former NATO Allied Land Forces Commander General (ret.) John W. “Mick” Nicholson, as well as defense experts with decades of experience looking into issues of defense and deterrence in Europe. Please join us for this important look at the conventional military challenges facing the Baltic region.
Also available during the conference will be copies of Jamestown Distinguished Senior Fellow Dr. Richard D. Hooker, Jr.’s latest report, How to Defend the Baltic States, published by The Jamestown Foundation on October 17.
WATCH THE VIDEO:
Friday, October 25, 2019
1:30 P.M.–4:30 P.M.
Root Conference Room
Second Floor
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20036-2109
Follow the event live on our Twitter account, @EDMJamestown, and join the conversation online by using #BalticDefense.
Agenda
Welcome
1:30 P.M.
Glen E. Howard
President, The Jamestown Foundation
* * *
Introductory Remarks
1:30 P.M.–2:00 P.M.
Dr. Richard D. Hooker, Jr.
Distinguished Senior Fellow, The Jamestown Foundation and
Former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Europe and Russia, National Security Council
* * *
Panel One: “A Military Perspective on Deterrence and Defense of the Baltic States”
2:00 P.M.–2:45 P.M.
Moderator:
Dr. Robert Johnson
Director, Changing Character of War Program, University of Oxford
Gen. (ret.) John Allen
Former Commander, International Security Assistance Force–Afghanistan and President, The Brookings Institution
Maj. Gen. (ret.) James Chiswell CB, CBE, MC
Former Director, UK Special Forces, and Former Commander of 1st UK Division in Germany
Maj. Gen. Cezary Wiśniewski
Defense Attaché, Embassy of Poland
* * *
Coffee Break
2:45 P.M.–3:00 P.M.
* * *
Panel Two: “Regional Perspectives on Deterrence and Defense of the Baltic States”
3:00 P.M.—4:30 P.M.
Moderator:
Dr. Glenn Chafetz
Senior Intelligence Service, Central Intelligence Agency
Dr. Hans Binnendijk
Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council
Dr. Jakub Grygiel
Former Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State, Office of Policy Planning
Maj. Gen. Bengt Svensson
Defense Attaché, Embassy of Sweden
* * *
Concluding Remarks
4:30 P.M.
Participant Biographies
John R. Allen
Allen served in two senior diplomatic roles following his retirement from the Marine Corps. First, for 15 months as senior advisor to the secretary of defense on Middle East Security, during which he led the security dialogue for the Israeli/Palestinian peace process. President Barack Obama then appointed Allen as special presidential envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, a position he held for 15 months. Allen’s diplomatic efforts grew the coalition to 65 members, effectively halting the expansion of ISIL. In recognition of this work, he was presented the Department of State Distinguished Honor Award by Secretary John Kerry and the Director of National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service Award by Director James Clapper.
During his nearly four-decade military career, Allen served in a variety of command and staff positions in the Marine Corps and the Joint Force. He commanded 150,000 U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan from July 2011 to February 2013. Allen is the first Marine to command a theater of war. During his tenure as ISAF commander, he recovered the 33,000 U.S. surge forces, moved the Afghan National Security Forces into the lead for combat operations, and pivoted NATO forces from being a conventional combat force into an advisory command.
Among his other affiliations, Allen is a senior fellow at the Merrill Center of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. He is an “Ancien” of the NATO Defense College in Rome, and a frequent lecturer there. Allen is the recipient of numerous U.S. and foreign awards.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in operations analysis from the U.S. Naval Academy, a Master of Arts in national security studies from Georgetown University, a Master of Science in strategic intelligence from the Defense Intelligence College, and a Master of Science in national security strategy from the National Defense University.
Hans Binnendijk
Dr. Hans Binnendijk is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is also an adjunct political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Previously, he was a senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies. Until 2012, he was the Vice President for Research at the National Defense University and Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies. He previously served twice on the National Security Council staff as senior director for Defense Policy and Arms Control and earlier as an officer for Southern European Affairs. He also served as deputy director and acting director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff and as deputy staff director and legislative director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In academia, he was director of Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and deputy director and director of studies of London’s Institute for International Strategic Studies. He has received numerous awards for his government service, including three Distinguished Public Service Awards and a Superior Service Award, in addition to receiving the Cross of the Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany. Binnendijk is author, coauthor, or editor of nearly 20 books and has written over 200 articles, editorials, and reports. He received his B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania and his MALD and his PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Glenn Chafetz
Dr. Glenn Chafetz retired this year after 22 years of government service with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the State Department, and the Central Intelligence Agency. A member of the Senior Intelligence Service, he served as Chief of Station three times and spend most of his career overseas. Before coming to government, Dr. Chafetz was Associate Professor at the University of Memphis, and Research Scholar at the University of Georgia. Dr. Chafetz received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1991, and did post-doctoral work at Stanford University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Virginia. A Russian linguist, he has published widely on Russian foreign policy, decision-making and international relations. The views expressed at this conference are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the CIA or U.S. Government.
James Chiswell
Major General (ret.) James Chiswell (CB, CBE, MC) was commissioned into the Parachute Regiment in 1983. He took part in Operation Barras in Sierra Leone in September 2000 for which he was awarded the Military Cross.
Chiswell became Commanding officer of 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment in 2004 and led his battalion in Iraq. He was then sent to Permanent Joint Headquarters, Northwood as Assistant Chief of Staff with responsibility for current operations. He went on to be Liaison Officer to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, D.C. in 2008 and Commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade in December 2008 seeing service as Commander Task Force Helmand when the brigade was deployed to Afghanistan in October 2010. General Chiswell was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in September 2011 in recognition of his service in Afghanistan. He became General Officer Commanding 1st Armoured Division in October 2012 and Director Special Forces in 2015. Chiswell was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 2018 Birthday Honours. Chiswell retired from the British Army on September 22, 2018.
Jakub Grygiel
Dr. Jakub Grygiel is an associate professor at the Catholic University of America (Washington, DC). In 2017–2018, he was a senior advisor to the Secretary of State in the Office of Policy Planning working on European affairs. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and on the faculty of SAIS-Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC. He is the author of Return of the Barbarians (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Great Powers and Geopolitical Change (JHU Press, 2006), and co-author with Wess Mitchell of The Unquiet Frontier (Princeton University Press, 2016). His writings on international relations and security studies have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The American Interest, Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, Orbis, Commentary, Parameters, as well as several U.S. and foreign newspapers. He earned a Ph.D., M.A. and an MPA from Princeton University, and a BSFS Summa Cum Laude from Georgetown University.
Richard D. Hooker, Jr.
Dr. Richard D. Hooker, Jr. is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation. A University Professor, he holds The Theodore Roosevelt Chair in National Security Affairs at the National Defense University. He previously served as the Director, Institute for National Strategic Studies at NDU and as Dean of the NATO Defense College in Rome. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute of Strategic Studies, and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A former White House Fellow, Dr. Hooker taught at the United States Military Academy at West Point and held the Chief of Staff of the Army Chair at the National War College in Washington, D.C. As a military officer and senior defense official, he served in the White House in the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush and Donald Trump in the Executive Office of the President and National Security Council, most recently as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Europe and Russia.
Dr. Hooker graduated with a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy in 1981 and holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in International Relations from the University of Virginia. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. National War College, where he earned an M.S. in National Security Studies. He has authored more than sixty articles and six books on security and defense-related topics. Dr. Hooker has lectured extensively at leading academic and military institutions in the United States and abroad, including Harvard and Oxford. Prior to his retirement from active duty, Dr. Hooker served for 30 years in the United States Army as a parachute infantry officer in the United States and Europe. While on active duty he participated in military operations in Grenada, Somalia, Rwanda, the Sinai, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, including command of a parachute brigade in Baghdad from January 2005 to January 2006. His military service also included tours in the offices of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army.
Robert Johnson
Dr. Rob Johnson is the Director of the Oxford Changing Character of War Centre, Senior Research Fellow of Pembroke College, and Associate of the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. He is a member of the advisory panel of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom and lecturer for the Royal College of Defence Studies. A former British Army officer, he supports a number of overseas academic programs, including those of Stanford, Harvard and Yale. Dr Johnson became a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2019.
Dr. Johnson’s primary research interests are in strategy, its development, and the history of war which informs it. His regional interest is in the Middle East, but he is familiar with a number of global conflict and security issues. In light of recent strategic challenges, his research has necessarily addressed hybrid warfare, unconventional operations and ‘War Amongst the People’, including terrorism, insurgency and counter-insurgency. He has also examined how conflicts can be terminated, through transition and negotiation.
Currently he assists the British armed forces in planning for reconfigured structures and missions and is focused on the difficulties of ‘planning future war’ using historical examples. He is actively involved in developing doctrine. He also runs strategic exercises, including scenario-based learning processes grounded in history and recent conflicts, at the Royal College of Defence Studies, and lectures at the Higher Command and Staff Centre.
Bengt Svensson
Major General Bengt Svensson is the Defense Attache at the Swedish Embassy to the United States in Washington, D.C. An air defense officer, he is a graduate of the Karlberg Army Academy, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and the NATO Defense College. General Svensson holds a Master of Military Arts and Sciences degree from the U.S. Command and General Staff College, and is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences.
A published author and acknowledged expert in international security affairs, General Svensson commanded air defense units from platoon through battalion level and has served multiple tours with the Swedish Army Staff and Ministry of Defense. He is a veteran of overseas deployments with UN forces in Cyprus and the Balkans. He previously served in Washington as Military Attache from 2006-2009 and took up his current posting in 2015.
Cezary Wiśniewski
Major General Cezary Wiśniewski has served as the Defense, Military, Naval and Air Attaché at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington D.C. since 2017. He has served 28 years in the Polish military service, during which he occupied various positions within the Air Force of Poland.
Prior to this posting, Major General Wiśniewski served as the Inspector of the Polish Air Force at the General Command of the Polish Armed Forces. Additionally, he briefly served as Chief of the Flight Safety Inspectorate in the Ministry of National Defense – Chairman of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee.
Before his tenure in the Ministry of National Defense, Major General Wiśniewski assumed high ranking positions in the 4th Air Training Wing, Deblin, Poland.
From 2013 to 2014, he worked for the Polish Armed Forces New Management and Command System Team as senior specialist. He previously headed the Tactical Aviation Unit at the Aviation Department of the Polish Air Force; and acted as Commander of the NATO Deployable Forces Unit in Warsaw.
Major General Wiśniewski was awarded the Silver Medal of the Armed Forces in the Service of the Fatherland, the Gold Medal of Merit for National Defense, the Icarus Statuette (2011) and the Air Force Cross of Merit.
Major General Wiśniewski both attended the Air War College at the Maxwell Air Force Base (USA) and the National Defense University of Warsaw. He additionally holds an Engineering degree from the Polish Air Force Academy.
