HELSINKI SECURITY FORUM 2023

Alexandra Pasternak-Jackson is the CEO of Amcham Finland since 2018. A dual-citizen of Finland and the United States, she has spent the last 16 years working in various areas of transatlantic business and international relations. She proactively promotes international business and foreign direct investment to Finland, working with both government and private sector stakeholders, as well as providing opportunities and networks for Finnish companies heading to the US market. Pasternak-Jackson is a frequent public speaker and moderator, addressing senior leadership audiences in both the United States and Finland on topics ranging from foreign direct investment and the transatlantic economy to networking and women’s leadership topics. She lives in Helsinki with her two children. Active on https://www.linkedin.com/in/pasternakjackson/

Andrew A. Michta is Dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He holds a PhD in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University. His areas of expertise are international security, NATO, and European politics and security, with a special focus on Central Europe and the Baltic states.

Previously, he was professor of national security affairs at the US Naval War College, an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Europe Program, and an affiliate of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. From 1988 to 2015, he was the M.W. Buckman distinguished professor of international studies at Rhodes College. From 2013 to 2014, he was a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, DC, where he focused on defense programming. From 2011 to 2013, he was a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the founding director of the organization’s Warsaw office. From 2009 to 2010, he was a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. He served as professor of national security studies and director of studies of the Senior Executive Seminar at the George C. Marshall Center from 2005 to 2009. Previously, he was a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University, a public policy scholar at the Wilson Center, and a research associate at the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University.

He is a contributing editor for 1945, a nonpartisan journal devoted to foreign- and security-policy issues. His books include The Limits of Alliance: The United States, NATO and the EU in North and Central Europe (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006); The Soldier-Citizen: The Politics of the Polish Army after Communism (St. Martin’s Press, 1997); The Government and Politics of Postcommunist Europe (Praeger Publishers, 1994); East Central Europe After the Warsaw Pact: Security Dilemmas in the 1990s (Greenwood Press, 1992); and Red Eagle: The Army in Polish Politics, 1944-1988 (Hoover Press, 1990). He also edited and contributed to America’s New Allies: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in NATO (The University of Washington Press, 1999); and coedited, with Ilya Prizel, Polish Foreign Policy Reconsidered: Challenges of Independence (St. Martin’s Press, 1995) and Post-Communist Eastern Europe: Crisis and Reform (St. Martin’s Press and Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, 1992).
His most recent book with Paal Hilde, The Future of NATO: Regional Defense and Global Security, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2014.

Michta is fluent in Polish and Russian and proficient in German and French.

Anu Bradford is Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organizations at Columbia Law School. She is also a director for Columbia’s European Legal Studies Center and a Senior Scholar at Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business at Columbia Business School. Bradford is the author of “The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World” (OUP 2020), which was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by Foreign Affairs. Her next book “Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology” will be published by the OUP in September 2023.

Braz Baracuhy, a career diplomat, is the Chargé d’Affaires of Brazil to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil in 2001 and his work has focused on geoeconomics, economic diplomacy, international trade negotiations, and foreign-policy strategy. In Brasília, he served as the deputy-director of policy planning at the office of the Foreign Minister’s Policy Planning Staff; and head of the Itamaraty’s division of international trade in agriculture & commodities. His missions abroad include chief economic counsellor at the Brazilian Embassy to China; Doha Round trade negotiator at the WTO in Geneva; secretary at the Brazilian Embassy to Peru. He attended the Grand Strategy Program at Yale University and studied International Relations at the London School of Economics, the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), and the Instituto Rio Branco (Brazilian Diplomatic Academy). He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Charly Salonius-Pasternak is a Leading Researcher at FIIA and leads the work of the Center on US Politics and Power (CUSPP). His work at FIIA focuses on international security issues, especially Nordic and transatlantic security (including NATO), as well as U.S. foreign and defence policy. Recently he has focused on Finnish-Swedish defence cooperation and the evolution of US and NATO alliance reassurance approaches in light of the changed regional security situation. In 2017, he was a visiting research fellow at the Changing Character of War programme at Pembroke College (Oxford University), where he studied the hybridization of warfare and the impact of the Information Age on the character of war.

General Christopher G. Cavoli assumed duties as Commander, U.S. European Command, July 1, 2022 and Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), July 4, 2022. General Cavoli previously served as Commander of the consolidated U.S. Army Europe and Africa October 2020 through June 2022. From January 2018 until the consolidation, General Cavoli served as the commander of U.S. Army Europe. Commissioned into the Infantry in 1987, General Cavoli has served in a wide variety of positions throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. He’s commanded the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment; 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division; 7th Army Training Command; and 25th Infantry Division. He also served as the Deputy Commander of Regional Command West in Herat, Afghanistan, and as the Deputy Commanding General for Operations at the 82nd Airborne Division. General Cavoli’s staff experience includes service as the Director for Russia on the Joint Staff; Deputy Executive Assistant for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Director of the Chief of Staff of the Army’s Coordination Group. He has held fellowships at National Defense University, the George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies and the Army Chief of Staff’s Strategic Studies Group. General Cavoli is a Foreign Area Officer with a concentration on Eurasia, and speaks Italian, Russian and French. He holds degrees from Princeton University and Yale University. His awards include the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, the Ranger Tab and Master Parachutist’s wings.

David O’Sullivan assumed his duties as EU Sanctions Envoy in January 2023. He has a long and distinguished career in the European Public Service, spanning over four decades and he has served in several senior official posts.

Prior to his appointment as Sanctions Envoy, he was a Director General of the Institute for International and European Affairs, a leading Irish think tank. Before that, he joined the Brussels office of the law firm Steptoe and Johnson LLP as a Senior Counsellor (2019-2022).

David O’Sullivan served as Ambassador of the European Union Delegation to the United States from November 2014 until February 2019. Prior to his appointment as Ambassador to the U.S., he was the Chief Operating Officer of the EU’s new diplomatic service, the European External Action Service. He had previously held a number of senior positions within the European Commission including Director General for Trade (2005-2010); Secretary General of the European Commission (2000-2005); and Chief of Staff to Commission President Romano Prodi (1999-2000).  Before joining the Commission, he started his career with the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs (1977-1979).

Mr. O’Sullivan is a Member of the Governing Board of the King Baudouin Foundation as well as of the European Policy Centre.

Esa Rautalinko has been the President and CEO of Patria Plc since 2019. Prior to assuming this position, Rautalinko gained extensive experience in leadership in domestic and international companies, serving as President and CEO of Örum Oy, Vaasan Group, Honkarakenne Plc and TeliaSonera Plc. Rautalinko also serves on the board of a number of companies, including as Chairman at Millog Group, Vr Group and Aerospace and Defence Industry Finland.

Patria is an international provider of defence, security and aviation life cycle support services, pilot training and technology solutions.
Patria provides its aerospace and military customers with equipment availability, continuous performance development as well as selected intelligence, surveillance and management system products and services. Patria Group consists of the parent company, Patria Oyj, and its subsidiaries.

Dr Euan Graham joined ASPI as a Senior Analyst in July 2023. During his career, Euan has developed deep knowledge of Australia’s regional security environment, working for think tanks in Australia, Singapore and the UK, where he previously worked for the British foreign office, including time on the ground in North Korea and Southeast Asia. Before joining ASPI, Euan was based in Singapore, at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, where he was closely involved in organising the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual summit of defence ministers from across the Indo-Pacific region.

He has published extensively, on a broad range of defence and security topics, including as a regular contributor for The Strategist since 2013. He has published two solo-authored books: Japan’s Sea Lane Security 1940–2004: A Matter of Life and Death? (2005) and Australia’s Security in China’s Shadow (2023).

Frank A. Rose was sworn in as the Principal Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on 2 August 2021. He was confirmed by the Senate on 30 July 2021.

In his role as Principal Deputy Administrator, Rose will lead cyber security, workforce development and staffing, and international outreach in addition to supporting the Administrator’s initiatives.

Prior to his nomination, Frank Rose was a senior fellow and the co-director of the Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. He focused on nuclear strategy and deterrence, arms control, strategic stability, missile defense, outer space, and emerging security challenges. From 2017-18, he served as Principal Director and Chief of Government Relations at the Aerospace Corporation.

Before that, Rose served at the U.S. Department of State as Assistant Secretary for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance from 2014-2017. In this position, he was responsible for advising the Secretary of State on a wide variety of Arms Control, Strategic Policy, Verification, and Compliance Issues. From 2009-2014, Rose served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Space and Defense Policy where he was responsible for key issues related to arms control and defense policy including missile defense, space security, chemical and biological weapons, and conventional arms control.

Prior to joining the State Department in June 2009, Rose held various national security staff positions in the U.S. House of Representatives. Rose has also held numerous positions within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, including as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Threat Reduction, and Policy Advisor in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. Before that, he worked as a National Security Analyst with Science Applications International Corporation and on the staff of U.S. Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA).

Rose received his bachelor’s degree in history from American University in 1994 and a master’s degree in war studies from Kings’ College, University of London in 1999. He is also a recipient of numerous awards including: the Department of Defense Exceptional Public Service Award (2001); the Office of Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence (2002); the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service (2005); the State Department Superior Honor Award (2012); and the Ordinul National Serviciul Credincios (Knight) from Romania (2014), in acknowledgement for his role as the lead U.S. negotiator for the 2011 missile defense basing agreement.​

Greg Miller is an investigative foreign correspondent for The Washington Post based in London, and is the author of “The Apprentice — Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy,” a book published in 2018 by the Washington Post and Harper Collins. Miller was among the Post reporters awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the fallout under the Trump administration. Miller was also part of the team awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service for the paper’s stories about U.S. surveillance programs exposed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984, McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years. He retired as a Lieutenant General in June 2018 after serving as the 25th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. He holds a PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. McMaster is the host of Battlegrounds: International Perspectives on Crucial Challenges and Opportunities and is a regular on Goodfellows. He is a Distinguished University Fellow at Arizona State University.

Heather A. Conley is the sixth president of the German Marshall Fund. Ms. Conley arrives at GMF after 12 years at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she most recently served as senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic and as director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program. At CSIS, Ms. Conley developed the acclaimed Kremlin Playbook series, a dedicated research effort that examined the doctrine and methodology of Russian malign economic behavior and its methodology across Europe. She also is a recognized expert on the Arctic region, focusing on the Russian Arctic, climate transformation and U.S. policy toward the region.

Ms. Conley previously served four years as executive director of the Office of the Chairman of the Board at the American National Red Cross, where she supported the first comprehensive reform of the governance structure of the American Red Cross Board since 1947, incorporating modern best-governance practices. She worked closely with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the International Movement’s policies and programs in the Middle East and elsewhere.

From 2001 to 2005, Ms. Conley was deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for U.S. bilateral relations with the countries of Northern and Central Europe. She co-led the U.S. interagency effort to enlarge NATO and secure Senate ratification of an Amended NATO Treaty, and she created a senior level U.S. dialogue with the eight Nordic and Baltic states, the Enhanced Partnership in Europe (e-PINE). Earlier in her career, she worked at an international consulting firm led by former U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.

Ms. Conley began her career in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. She was selected to serve as special assistant to the coordinator of U.S. assistance to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, and she has received two State Department Meritorious Honor Awards. Conley frequently appears as a foreign policy analyst and Europe expert on CNN, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, and PBS, among other prominent media outlets. She received her B.A. in international studies from West Virginia Wesleyan College and her M.A. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Henry Foy is the FT’s Brussels Bureau Chief. He heads the newspaper’s coverage of EU foreign policy, relations between Brussels and other world powers, and the diplomatic intrigues between member states.

He also leads coverage of Nato, and the evolving defence and security issues affecting Europe, and has been at the heart of the FT’s continuing coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the western response to it.

Previously, Henry was the FT’s Moscow Bureau chief, where he interviewed Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in summer 2019, a rare meeting between the Russian president and an international journalist where Putin made his historic declaration that the “liberal idea is obsolete.”

During his almost five years in Moscow, Henry charted the Putin regime’s descent into repression and autocracy, including the attempted assassination and jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the collapse of western cooperation with Russia and relations between the Kremlin and Donald Trump’s White House.

He has also held FT assignments in Warsaw, where he covered the eastern EU nations, and in London, as the newspaper’s global automotive correspondent. Henry joined the FT in 2013 from global news agency Reuters, where he was a correspondent in India.

Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges

James Appathurai was appointed to this post in September 2021. As DASG, he works on policy development and implementation in the fields of Emerging and Disruptive Technologies, cyber security, counter-terrorism, the security implications of climate change, and hybrid defence. Mr. Appathurai previously served as DASG for Political Affairs and Security Policy, as well as Special Representative to Central Asia and the Caucasus. He was NATO’s Spokesperson from 2004 to 2010. He served as Deputy Head and Senior Planning Officer in the Policy Planning and Speechwriting Section of NATO’s Political Affairs Division from 1998 to 2004. He served in the Canadian Defence Department from 1994 to 1998.

Jessica Berlin is a foreign policy analyst and commentator. Her career has spanned 16+ years in security, foreign policy, economic development, and tech, including work with government agencies, civil society, and the private sector across four continents. She focuses on transatlantic security, African-European relations, and Germany’s evolving role in the world. Her commentary has been featured by DW News, BBC, CNN, the Washington Post, Al Jazeera English, ZDF, ARD, France 24, Tagesspiegel, NZZ, Bild, et al. Her work for Ukraine has been profiled in the Berliner Zeitung.

Berlin is the founder of the strategy consultancy CoStruct, Vice Chairman at pan-African fintech company :brij, and the recipient of numerous honorary fellowships, including from the German Marshall Fund of the United States, BMW Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation, Atlantic Dialogues, GlobSec, et al. A frequent keynote speaker, her TEDx on the transatlantic democratic crisis has been described as “one of the most powerful and inspiring TED talks.” She holds an M.Sc. in Political Economy of Emerging Markets from King’s College London, a B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University, and speaks five languages.

Ms. Jessica Cox serves as Director, Nuclear Policy Directorate at NATO HQ in Brussels, Belgium. She provides policy support to the Secretary General and others at NATO HQ on matters related to NATO nuclear deterrence, including in the Secretary General’s role of Chair of the Nuclear Planning Group. The Nuclear Policy Directorate (NPD) organizes the work of the Nuclear Planning Group, develops and implements NATO nuclear policy, and organizes and leads HQ exercises, policy symposiums, and education and training programs. Ms. Cox chairs the Nuclear Planning Group Staff Group and will chair the NATO-Russia Council Nuclear Experts Group (work currently suspended).

Prior to her NATO assignment, Ms. Cox was a policy analyst in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). She recently completed two years detailed to the National Security Council (NSC) as the Director for Arms Control, where she led the development of U.S. policy on nuclear and conventional arms control treaties as well as issues associated with US-Russia and US-China strategic stability. As such, she was instrumental in developing a new approach to Russia’s violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, managing implementation of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and restarting bilateral U.S.-Russia Strategic Stability Talks in September 2017.

Prior to joining the NSC, Ms. Cox was Director of Russia Policy and Conventional Arms Control Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy (OSD Policy). She served previously as DoD’s Lead Negotiator for the Treaty on Open Skies, where she was instrumental in negotiating a new framework for certifying and using digital sensors on Open Skies aircraft. Since joining OSD Policy, Ms. Cox has served as the Country Director, Pakistan Policy, with a focus on strategic stability, counter-terrorism and Pakistan-India relations; Country Director, Iran, with a focus on Iran’s nuclear and missile developments; and Policy Analyst, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, with a focus on countering WMD terrorism. Ms. Cox came to OSD Policy from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), where she was the Deputy Country Manager, Republic of Georgia for the Biological Threat Reduction Program.

Ms. Cox has been active in both foreign policy and politics, holding such positions as: Client Manager for Grassroots Enterprise, a bi-partisan political consulting firm; Young Professionals Outreach Coordinator, 2004 General Clark for President Campaign; Program Coordinator, International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); and Research Assistant, Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy (CISTP).

Ms. Cox holds a Juris Doctorate degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a Bachelor’s of Science in International Relations from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Ms. Cox entered government as a Presidential Management Fellow.

Jyri Lavikainen is a researcher in the Finnish Foreign Policy, Northern European Security and NATO research programme. His research focuses on Russian foreign and security policy, nuclear deterrence and great power politics. Lavikainen graduated from the University of Helsinki in 2016 with a Master’s degree in Political Science. He is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, where he is studying the development of the Russian concept of the struggle over the sphere of influence.

Kaja Kallas, member of the Estonian Reform Party, has been the head of the 53rd Government of the Republic of Estonia formed on April 17, 2023.
Kaja Kallas was born on 18 June 1977 in Tallinn. She is married and a mother of two sons and a daughter. Kallas joined the Estonian Reform Party in 2011 and has led the party since April 14, 2018. Kallas previously served as Prime Minister of Estonia from 2021-2023. Kallas has served as a member of Estonia’s Riigikogu from 2011-2014 and 2019-2021. From 2014-2018, she was a member of the European Parliament. Kallas graduated from the University of Tartu in 1999 with a degree in law and undertook her postgraduate studies at the Estonian Business School in 2007.

Keir Giles is a Senior Consulting Fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. Giles has supported Chatham House in its Russia-focused research since 2013. Previously, he worked with the BBC Monitoring Service and the UK Defence Academy, where he wrote and advised on Russian military, defence and security issues including human factors influencing Russian security policy, Russian strategy and doctrine, the Russian view of cyber and information security, and Russia’s relations with its neighbours in Northern Europe.

Giles is the author of multiple publications explaining the Russian approach to warfare, including NATO’s “Handbook of Russian Information Warfare” (NATO Defense College, 2016), and “Moscow Rules: What Drives Russia to Confront the West” (Brookings, 2019), an examination of the persistent factors causing relations with Russia to fall into crisis. He examined consistent patterns of Western success and failure in deterring Russian aggression in “What Deters Russia” (Chatham House, September 2021). His most recent book is “Russia’s War on Everybody” (Bloomsbury 2022) describing the human impact of Russia’s campaigns to acquire power and influence around the world.

Kim Dozier is Senior Managing Editor of Military Times and a CNN Global Affairs Analyst. She has written for TIME Magazine, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, and AP. A Peabody-Award-winning journalist, she’s also reported for CBS News from multiple conflict zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dr Lynn Kuok is Shangri-La Dialogue Senior Fellow for Asia-Pacific Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and co-Editor of one of its signature publications, the Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment. She is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and has lectured at the US Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute and the Australian War College.

Lynn is a former Brookings Institution expert and has held fellowships at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, the Harvard Kennedy School, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Centre for International Law. She served as Editor-in-Chief of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs and the Singapore Law Review.

Lynn sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Geopolitics and was a Council Member on its Global Future Council on International Security.

Mikael Wigell is Research Director at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and Adjunct Professor in International Political Economy at the University of Tampere. He belongs to the World Economic Forum Expert Network, currently curating the WEF’s Geoeconomics section. Wigell has also been a Member of the Development Policy Committee of the Finnish Government and Chairman of the Finnish International Studies Association. He earned his PhD at the London School of Economics and he has been a Visiting Fellow at the Changing Character of War Centre, Oxford University.

His work on great-power politics, geoeconomics, hybrid threats and the political economy of development has been published in top-ranked international academic journals such as International Affairs, World Development, The Washington Quarterly, Comparative Strategy, Democratization, Asia Europe Journal and Global Affairs. He has also written policy reports for the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Government of Finland, as well as a number of briefings for international organizations such as the World Economic Forum, the Japan Development Bank and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. He led the International Business Risk and Resilience Monitor-project funded by the European Commission, as well as the Nordic Security of Supply in an Age of Disruption-project funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers. His latest publication (ed. together with Mika Aaltola and Sören Scholvin) is Geo-economics and Power Politics in the 21^st Century: The Revival of Economic Statecraft (Routledge, 2018; 2020).

Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She was previously an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University. She is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve for which she works as a strategic planner at INDOPACOM. For her contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, she won the Individual Reservist of the Year Award in 2016. She has published widely, including in Foreign Affairs, International Security, International Studies Review, Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, The National Interest, Survival, and Asian Security. Her book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019), won the 2020 American Political Science Association International Security Section Best Book by an Untenured Faculty Member. She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. Her publications and other commentary can be found at www.orianaskylarmastro.com and on Twitter @osmastro.

Pål Jonson is Sweden’s Minister of Defence since 2022. Prior to this, he was the Chairman of the Committee on Defence in the Swedish Parliament (2020-2022) and spokesperson for the Moderate party on defence issues. He entered Riksdagen in 2016 and has among other positions served as Vice-Chairman of the Committee on European Affairs and as Chairman of the Swedish-Japanese Parliamentary Friendship Group. He previously served as Director of Communication for the Swedish Security and Defence Industry Association; as Political Advisor at the Ministry of Defence and as an analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency. In addition, he has been a visiting fellow at the NATO Defence College in Rome. He holds a BSFS from Georgetown University, an MA in political studies from the College of Europe and a PhD in War Studies from King College.

Pekka Laurila is the Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of ICEYE. ICEYE owns and operates the world’s largest constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites. The company provides timely and reliable Earth observation data as well as natural catastrophe solutions for companies and governments. ICEYE is the first company that has successfully miniaturized a SAR satellite, making it possible to launch more units to reliably image any location on Earth, every few hours, every day. With its growing SAR satellite constellation, ICEYE offers its partners a set of unprecedented satellite imaging capabilities, accessing any area of interest faster, more frequently, and at a lower cost.

As CSO, Laurila has been instrumental in establishing and directing the company’s strategy, and previously as CFO, raising the initial $20M funds for ICEYE. Laurila joined forces with ICEYE Co-founder Rafal Modrzewski to create synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) microsatellites to solve various large scale issues the world faces, including those related to the ice monitoring for maritime safety, agricultural financing with objective data, and a wide range of further Earth observation analytics. Laurila brings with him deep domain expertise in Geographic information systems, and he has received the 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 Technology award based on the world-first achievements of ICEYE.

Prior to co-founding ICEYE, Laurila played an instrumental role in Finland’s Aalto University nanosatellite Program Aalto-1, where he studied as a student of the Engineering and Geoinformation Systems program.

Samu Paukkunen is the acting director of the Finnish institute of international affairs. His area of expertise and research interests include the Arctic region and the affects of geopolitical changes in the area and foreign and security policy.

He has comprehensive experience in working for the Finnish state organizations. Mr Paukkunen has acted as an Advisor in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, Senior analyst in strategic security analysis for the Finnish Defence Forces, Foreign and security policy expert for the Office of the President of the Republic of Finland and for the Finnish Parliament as the Secretary general in the International Parliament Cooperation organisation and as Counsellor for international affairs.

Dr. Sinikukka Saari is Research Director at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. She works at FIIA’s Finnish Foreign Policy, Northern European Security and NATO programme and leads the cross-cutting theme Great Power Politics and Foresight at FIIA. Dr. Saari’s fields of expertise include Russia’s foreign and security policy, Finland’s foreign and security policy as well as foresight in IR and Foreign Policy studies. She’s particularly interested in Russia’s relations with its neighbouring states and EU–Russia relations.

Prior to her current position, Dr. Saari worked as a Senior Researcher at FIIA, as an Analyst for the EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Tbilisi, as a Senior Associate at EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris and as a Special Advisor for the Policy Planning and Research Unit at the Foreign Ministry of Finland. She has also served as a visiting scholar at the Moscow Carnegie Center and at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI) in Stockholm. Sinikukka Saari received her PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Social Sciences in 2007.

Stanislav Secrieru is National Security Advisor to the President of the Republic of Moldova. Prior he was a Senior Analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (2018-2023) where he covered Russia and the EU’s eastern neighbourhood. Stanislav also was a Senior Research Fellow at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (2014-2016) and a Policy Analyst at the Open Society European Policy Institute in Brussels (2016-2017). He was visiting fellow at the NATO Defence College in Rome (2006), the Institute for European Politics in Berlin (2009-2010) and the New Europe College in Bucharest (2011-2012). He worked for the European Council on Foreign Relations on research projects addressing political and security developments in EU’s eastern neighbourhood (2007-2009). Stanislav holds a PhD from the National School of Political Science and Public Administration in Bucharest.

Sten Rynning is Director of the Danish Institute of Advanced Study and a Professor of War Studies, the University of Southern Denmark. He served as interim dean of the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences November 2021-May 2022 and as vice dean for research June 2019-August 2022.

Sten Rynning founded the University of Southern Denmark’s Center for War Studies in 2011 and headed it until 2019. He served on the official Norwegian Afghanistan Commission (2015-2016) and has in addition advised the commission of inquiry into the Denmark’s war participation in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq (2017-2019) as well as ambassador Peter Taksøe-Jensen’s official review of Danish Foreign Policy (2015-2016). In 2021 he was made Knight of the Order of Dannebrog.

Sten Rynning’s service to the academic community includes the presidency of the Nordic International Studies Association (2011-2015). He currently serves on the board of the Danish Institute for International Studies and the editorial board of the European Journal of International Security, International Affairs, the Journal of Strategic Studies, the Journal of Transatlantic Studies, and the Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies. He was a visiting fellow at NATO’s Defence College (NDC), Rome, spring 2012, and has since regularly lectured at the NDC Senior Course as well as at the NDC Generals, Flag Officers and Ambassadors course. In the spring of 2017, he was a scholar in residence at American University’s School of International Service, Washington, D.C.

Sten Rynning’s publications include NATO in Afghanistan: The Liberal Disconnect (Stanford University Press 2012), Transforming Military Power since the Cold War: Britain, France, and the United States, 1991-2012 (co-author with Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff, Cambridge University Press 2013), South Asia and the Great Powers: International Relations and Regional Security (editor, IB Tauris 2017), War Time: Temporality and the Decline of Western Military Power (co-editor with Olivier Schmitt and Amelie Theussen, Brookings 2021), and “NATO’s Next Strategic Concept: Prioritise or Perish,” Survival (co-author with Jens Ringsmose, Fall 2021).

Sten Rynning is working on A History of NATO, 1949-2024 (on contract with Yale University Press). Expected publication in February 2024 ahead of NATO’s 75th anniversary.

Dr. Ulrike Franke is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Her areas of focus include German and European security and defence, the future of warfare, and the impact of new technologies such as drones and artificial intelligence on geopolitics and warfare.

Ulrike has published widely on these and other topics, among others in Die Zeit, FAZ, RUSI Whitehall Papers, Comparative Strategy, War on the Rocks, Zeitschrift für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik, and regularly appears as commentator in the media. She co-hosts the Sicherheitshalber Podcast, a German-language podcast on security and defence.

Ulrike holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Oxford – in her PhD thesis, she studied the use of drones by western armed forces. She also holds a BA from Sciences Po Paris and a double summa cum laude MA degree from Sciences Po Paris (Affaires internationales/Sécurité internationale) and the University of St. Gallen (International Affairs and Governance).

Prof. Dr. Ummu Salma Bava is Professor and Jean Monnet Chair, Centre for European Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. With over 35 years of teaching, research and administrative experience and is one of the leading Indian experts on the European Union, EU Member States, and India’s foreign and security policy. Her other research areas are regional integration, Indo-Pacific region, emerging powers, global governance, norms, peace and conflict studies and higher education.

She has numerous publications and the latest include “The European Union’s Relations with South Asia” in The Routledge Handbook of South Asia: Regions, Security and Connectivity (August 2023), “The European Union and Emerging Powers: Engagement, Cooperation and Contestation”, in Beyond the Crises: Potentials of the European Union in the 21st Century, Springer (Forthcoming September 2023), “Implications of the Ukraine Crisis for the European Union: Re-negotiating Security in an Interdependent World” (ICWA 2022), “EU-India Relations – The Strategic Partnership in Light of the European Union’s Global Strategy” (Springer 2021).

She was recognised as a leading expert on the European Union and awarded the Jean Monnet Chair on EU, Security, Peace and Conflict Resolution (EU-SPCR) by the European Commission (2017-2020). Bava is the only Indian to be a member of the Research Advisory Council (2013-2019) of Germany’s leading Think Tank – Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Berlin. In February 2023, she moderated the townhall meeting of German Chancellor Scholz with a group of young Indians in New Delhi.

Bava was conferred in January 2012 with the German civilian honour- the prestigious Order of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz) by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. She speaks fluent English, Hindi and German.

Wendy R. Anderson is Senior Vice President, Federal, National Security at Palantir Technologies where she provides executive leadership on Palantir’s U.S. Government business. Specifically, she leads the strategy for Palantir’s USG relations and advises the CEO and the Presidents of Palantir’s USG and commercial businesses.

Anderson is a widely recognized national security expert and accomplished executive with extensive knowledge on innovation, technology, and government operations in the defense and homeland security sectors. She is a known innovator, strategist, and trusted advisor, bringing more than two decades of expertise to senior leaders in government, the private sector, the entertainment industry, think tanks, and academia on pressing national security issues.

Prior to Palantir, Anderson served as General Manager, Defense and National Security, at SparkCognition, a global artificial intelligence (AI) company from 2017 to 2019. From 2010 to 2015, Anderson served in the Obama administration in key leadership roles in the Departments of Defense and Commerce, including as Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Chief of Staff to Deputy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, and Chief of Staff to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. While at the Defense Department, Anderson was twice awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Department’s highest civilian service award. During her tenure at DoD, National Journal described Anderson as one of the “25 Women Who Shape National Policy.”

From 2004 to 2010, Anderson held senior positions in the US Senate, as professional staff on both the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and worked for three US Senators on intelligence, foreign, and defense affairs.

She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Truman Center for National Policy’s Advisory Board, and a Founding Member of CHIEF in Washington, DC. Anderson is also an Industry Commissioner on the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Improving DoD Engagement with New Companies and Innovators.

Anderson received her B.A. from Hendrix College, a Master’s degree from Harvard University, and completed all coursework for her Master’s from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.