MARATHON - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Senior Advisor

Alexander Gray is a Senior Advisor at the Marathon Initiative. Gray previously served at the White House for four years, most recently as Deputy Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff of the National Security Council. He had earlier served as Special Assistant to the President for the Defense Industrial Base at the National Economic Council and as the first-ever Director for Oceania & Indo-Pacific Security at the National Security Council. Prior to his service at the White House, Gray served on the 2016 Presidential Transition Team at the U.S. Department of State and as Senior Advisor to former U.S. Congressman J. Randy Forbes. Gray's writings on national security and foreign policy issues have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, The Hill, National Review, Naval War College Review, and other publications. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and is a recipient of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service and the National Security Council's Outstanding Service Award. Gray is a graduate of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

Job Titles:

• U.S. Secretary of State

Job Titles:

• Member of the Advisory Board

C. Raja Mohan is a member of the Advisory Board at The Marathon Initiative. He is also a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, New Delhi and a visiting research professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Raja Mohan is an international affairs columnist for Foreign Policy and the Indian Express.

Job Titles:

• Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University

Charles A. Kupchan is Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served on the National Security Council under Presidents Obama and Clinton. His most recent book is Isolationism: A History of America's Efforts to Shield Itself from the World (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Job Titles:

• Austrian State Chancellor

Job Titles:

• Member of the Advisory Board

Dennis C. Blair is a member of the Advisory Board at The Marathon Initiative. Blair previously served as Director of National Intelligence and Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, retiring from the U.S. Navy after a 34-year career with the rank of Admiral.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Advisory Board
• Executive Director of the Observer Research Foundation America

Dhruva Jaishankar is Executive Director of the Observer Research Foundation America (ORF America) in Washington DC. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow with the Lowy Institute in Australia and a monthly columnist for the Hindustan Times in India. His research and analysis centers on India's relations with the United States, Japan, Australia, Southeast Asia, and Europe; defense and security policy; and globalization, democracy, and technology.

Job Titles:

• Co - Founder
• Principal
• Co - Chair of the NATO 2030 Reflection Process

Dr. A. Wess Mitchell is co-founder and principal at The Marathon Initiative and formerly served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Dr. A. Wess Mitchell is co-founder and principal at The Marathon Initiative, a policy initiative focused on developing strategies to prepare the United States for an era of sustained great power competition. Previously, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2017 to 2019. In this role, he was responsible for diplomatic relations with the 50 countries of Europe and Eurasia, as well as the institutions of NATO, the EU, and OSCE. At State Department, Mitchell played a principal role in formulating Europe strategy in support of the 2017 National Security Strategy and 2018 National Defense Strategy, led the Interagency in building instruments to counter Russian and Chinese influence in Europe, and spearheaded new diplomatic initiatives for Central Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Western Balkans. Prior to joining the State Department, Mitchell cofounded and served as President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Mitchell is the author of numerous articles and reports that have been translated into more than a dozen languages. His work has appeared in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Washington Post, American Interest, National Interest, Orbis, and Internationale Politik. He is the author of three books, including Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies and the Crisis of American Power (with Jakub J. Grygiel) and most recently, The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire (Princeton University Press, 2018). Mitchell holds a doctorate in political science from the Otto Suhr Institut für Politikwissenschaft at Freie Universität in Berlin, a master's degree from the Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he received the 2004 Hopper Award, and a bachelor's degree in history from Texas Tech University. During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Mitchell served on the national security team of Gov. Mitt Romney. From 2013 to 2016, he chaired the Europe Working Group of the John Hay Initiative. He has been awarded the Gold Medal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic, the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of Hungary, the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, and the Stanton Foundation Prize for writing in Applied History. Mitchell formerly served as a senior advisor to the Secretary of State. He currently serves as the vice chairman of the board of directors at CEPA, senior advisor at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Non-Resident Fellow in the Applied History Project at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government's Belfer Center. He is also a member of the International Advisory Council at Cambridge University's Centre for Geopolitics. In 2020, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg appointed Mitchell to co-chair, with former German Minister of Defense Thomas de Maiziere, the NATO Forward Looking Reflection Group, a ten-member consultative body charged with providing recommendations on the future of NATO. A sixth generation Texan, Mitchell lives with his family in Virginia. Limes | Former assistant secretary of state Wess Mitchell sits down with Italian geopolitical magazine, Limes........... The Economist | But such bilateral deals are bad news for nato, says Wess Mitchell, an American former state department official who co-chaired a reflection group for the alliance last year...... Bloomberg | "There's no question that Putin has been weakened," Wess Mitchell, a former US assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia and cofounder of two think tanks, said in an interview........ Echo24 | nder Donald Trump, Wess Mitchell was the top official in Europe at the State Department. Today, he works in a think-tank that profiles itself on the turn to Asia. But now war has broken out in Europe in the terrain he knows........ Neue Zuericher Zeitung | Wess Mitchell zieht in der NZZ erstmals Bilanz über seine Zeit als führender Europa-Politiker unter dem ehemaligen amerikanischen Präsidenten..... CNAS | Wess Mitchell joins Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Jim Townsend on a special, live episode of Brussels Sprouts to discuss the "NATO 2030" report's findings on the future of the NATO Alliance... WBUR | "It's startling the change in public outlook in these countries," Wess Mitchell, former assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, says. "And the calculation is that if they don't come into NATO, they're worried that they could be a tempting target.".......... Small Wars Journal | Interview with Dr. A. Wess Mitchell, co-chair of the NATO 2030 Reflection Process....

Job Titles:

• Distinguished Adjunct Fellow
• Member of the Advisory Board and Distinguished Adjunct Fellow

Dr. Edward N. Luttwak is a Distinguished Adjunct Fellow at The Marathon Initiative and formerly served as a consultant to the U.S. government. Dr. Edward N. Luttwak is a member of the Advisory Board and Distinguished Adjunct Fellow at The Marathon Initiative. Luttwak is the author of numerous books, most recently The Rise of China vs. The Logic of Strategy (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012). Dr. Edward N. Luttwak is a Distinguished Adjunct Fellow at The Marathon Initiative, a policy initiative focused on developing strategies to prepare the United States for an era of sustained great power competition. Previously, Luttwak has served on U.S. presidential transition teams, testified before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, and has advised the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. National Security Council, the White House Chief of Staff, and several allied governments, including Japan. Luttwak is the author of several books, including Coup d'état: A Practical Handbook (Penguin, 1968), which derived from his work as a London-based oil consultant; The Israeli Army, with Dan Horowitz (Allen Lane, 1975); The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), which derived from his Ph. D. dissertation; The Pentagon and The Art Of War: The Question Of Military Reform (Simon & Schuster, 1985), which was a cited source of the 1986 Defense Reorganization Act; Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987), which is widely assigned in professional military education programs; Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy (HarperCollins, 1999), which introduced the concept of geo-economics, the logic of war in the grammar of commerce; The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009); and, most recently, The Rise of China vs. The Logic of Strategy (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012), which derived from a study for the U.S. Government. His books have been published in Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Mongolian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese Lisbon, Portuguese São Paulo, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. Luttwak was born in Arad, Romania and raised in Italy and England. He is an alumnus of London School of Economics (B.S.) and Johns Hopkins University (Ph.D.). From 1967-1972, he was a volunteer and then military contractor for the Israel Defense Forces. In 1975, he was retained as a strategic consultant to the immediate Office of the Secretary of Defense under James R. Schlesinger. Luttwak was made a U.S. citizen by Act of Congress, H.R. 2550, 95th Congress, January 26, 1977. Luttwak established and supervises a conservation ranch in the Bolivian Amazon. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Job Titles:

• Senior Advisor

Dr. Jakub J. Grygiel is a Senior Advisor at The Marathon Initiative and formerly served as a Senior Advisor in the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State. Dr. Jakub J. Grygiel is a Senior Advisor at The Marathon Initiative, a policy initiative focused on developing strategies to prepare the United States for an era of sustained great power competition. He is also a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America (Washington, DC). Previously, Grygiel was a Senior Advisor in the Office of Policy Planning at the Department of State from 2017-2018. Prior to that, he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and on the faculty of SAIS-Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. 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, The National Interest, 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.

Job Titles:

• Co - Founder
• Principal

Elbridge Colby is co-founder and principal of The Marathon Initiative and formerly served as the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development.

Job Titles:

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Jesse Watters Primetime |Former assistant secretary of state Wess Mitchell discusses alleged actions taken by the Russian military on 'Jesse Watters Primetime............

Job Titles:

• U.S. President

Job Titles:

• Member of the Advisory Board

Kent Lucken is a member of the Advisory Board at The Marathon Initiative and Managing Director of Citi Private Bank in Boston. Previously, Lucken was a 14-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service and Foreign Policy Advisor for Mitt Romney's 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Advisory Board

Mary Kissel is a member of the Advisory Board at The Marathon Initiative and EVP and Senior Policy Advisor at Stephens, Inc. Previously, Kissel served as Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and was a Member of Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal.

Job Titles:

• Senior Advisor

Matt Pottinger is a Senior Advisor at The Marathon Initiative and formerly served as the U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor. Matt Pottinger is a Senior Advisor at the Marathon Initiative and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Pottinger previously served at the White House for four years in senior roles on the National Security Council staff, including as Deputy National Security Advisor from 2019 to 2021. In that role, he coordinated the full spectrum of national security policy. Before that he served as Senior Director for Asia, where he led the administration's work on Asia, and in particular its shift on China policy.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Advisory Board

Nadia Schadlow is a member of the Advisory Board at The Marathon Initiative and Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute. Previously, Schadlow was Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Advisory Board

Robert Kaplan is a member of the Advisory Board at The Marathon Initiative. He is also the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the bestselling author of nineteen books on foreign affairs, most recently The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian (Random House, 2021).

The Reagan Institute | Roger Zakheim and Wess Mitchell discuss the recent Russian military buildup along Ukraine's border and the Biden Administration's response......

Job Titles:

• Member of the Advisory Board

Thomas de Maizière has held various roles in German government, including head of the Federal Chancellery, Federal Minister of Homeland Security, and Minister of Defense, where he was a close confidant of Chancellor Angela Merkel. From 2009-2021 he was an MP in the German Bundestag. As co-chair of the NATO Reflection Group, he coordinated the preparation of the report "NATO2030: United for a new Era," which offered extensive proposals for the successful strategic and political realignment of NATO.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Advisory Board

Walter B. Slocombe is a member of the Advisory Board at The Marathon Initiative and a Senior Counsel at the Washington, D.C., law firm Caplin & Drysdale. Previously, Slocombe served as U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.