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• Book Club - Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World by Anne Applebaum

  • When
    10 Jul 2025
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn Rd., Hilton Head Island
  • Spaces left
    17

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  ABSTRACT

  NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer-prize winning author, an alarming account of how autocracies work together to undermine the democratic world, and how we should organize to defeat them

  We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents.

  But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran. Corrupt companies in one country do business with corrupt companies in another. The police in one country can arm and train the police in another, and propagandists share resources and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.
  
  International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don't stand a chance. The members of Autocracy, Inc, aren't linked by a unifying ideology, like communism, but rather a common desire for power, wealth, and impunity. In this urgent treatise, which evokes George Kennan's essay calling for "containment" of the Soviet Union, Anne Applebaum calls for the democracies to fundamentally reorient their policies to fight a new kind of threat.
  

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  
  Anne Applebaum is a historian and journalist. She is a staff writer for the Atlantic as well as a Senior Fellow at the Agora Institute, Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of several history books.

  Anne has been writing about Eastern Europe and Russia since 1989, when she covered the collapse of communism in Poland for the Economist magazine. She has also covered US, UK and European politics for a wide range of American and British publications. She is a former Washington Post columnist and a former deputy editor of the Spectator magazine.

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• Book Club - The new politics of Poland: A case of post-traumatic sovereignty by Jaroslaw Kuisz

  • When
    14 Aug 2025
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn Rd., Hilton Head Island
  • Spaces left
    34

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  ABSTRACT

  The election of populist far-right party Law and Justice in 2015 marked a shocking break in Polish politics. A period of stability was brutally interrupted as Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his allies took over public media and launched a controversial ‘reform’ of the judiciary.
  
  How was this illiberal turn possible after years of democratic development? Jaroslaw Kuisz, one of Poland’s leading liberal thinkers, digs deep into Polish history to propose an original analysis of the crisis. He reveals how centuries of statelessness have left Poles with a ‘post-traumatic’ attitude to sovereignty, making them wary of powerful foreign blocks, be it the EU, the Soviet Union or present-day Russia. This is a phenomenon populists have proved adept at exploiting.
  
  Providing a brilliant account of Europe’s largest illiberal democracy, The new politics of Poland shines a light on the broader situation in East and Central Europe, offering valuable lessons for other countries experiencing the rise of populist right-wing movements.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  

  Editor in Chief, Kultura Liberalna

  Dr. Jarosław Kuisz is a writer, essayist and political analyst. He is editor in chief of the Polish intellectual and centrist weekly Kultura Liberalna. He is a policy fellow at the Center for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge and an associate researcher at l'Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris. 
  
  From 2016 through 2018, Dr. Kuisz was co-director of the Knowledge Bridges Poland-Britain-Europe Project at St. Antony’s College Oxford. Previously, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford, the University of Chicago Law School and Columbia Law School, as well as Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the University of Copenhagen. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times, The Guardian, the Journal of Democracy, Foreign Policy, Le Monde and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. He is also a columnist for Die Tageszeitung. His new book, “PTSD Sovereignty: Poland`s New Politics,” will be published by Manchester University Press in 2023.

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• Book Club - Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

  • When
    11 Sep 2025
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn RD, Hilton Head Island

  Registration is closed

  The #1 New York Times and global bestseller from Walter Isaacson—is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating, controversial innovator of modern times. For two years, Isaacson shadowed Elon Musk as he executed his vision for electric vehicles at Tesla, space exploration with SpaceX, the AI revolution, and the takeover of Twitter and its conversion to X. The result is the definitive portrait of the mercurial pioneer that offers clues to his political instincts, future ambitions, and overall worldview.

  When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

  His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.

  At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he said.

  It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.

  For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?

  
  

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• Book Club - Midnight in Moscow by John J. Sullivan

  • When
    02 Oct 2025
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn Road, Hilton Head Island

  Registration is closed

  2025 Winner of The Fletcher School's Best Book on U.S.-Russian Relations  |  One of The Cipher Brief’s “Best National Security Reads for 2024”
  
  A memoir of service by the American ambassador who was on the diplomatic front lines when Putin invaded Ukraine, Midnight in Moscow is the first behind-the-scenes account of how U.S.-Russia relations hit their nadir—and a playbook for our unfolding confrontation.

  
  For weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, John J. Sullivan, the U.S. ambassador in Moscow, was warning that it would happen. When troops finally crossed the border, he was woken in the middle of the night with a prearranged code. The signal was even more bracing than the February cold: it meant that Sullivan needed to collect his bodyguards and get to the embassy as soon as possible. The war had begun, and the world would never be the same.
  In Midnight in Moscow, Sullivan leads readers into the offices of the U.S. embassy and the halls of the Kremlin during this climactic period—among the most dangerous since World War II. He shows how the Putin regime repeatedly lied about its intentions to invade Ukraine in the weeks leading up to the attack, while also devoting huge numbers of personnel and vast resources to undermining the U.S. diplomatic mission in Russia. And he explains how, when Putin ultimately gave the order to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he proved that Russia was not just at war with its neighbor: it was also at war, in a very real sense, with the United States, and with everything that it represents. But while Putin decided how this conflict started, its ending will be shaped by us.
   
  With his unique perspective on a pivotal moment in world history, Sullivan shows how our relationship with Russia has deteriorated, where it’s headed, and how far we should be prepared to go in standing up to the menace in Moscow.

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• John J. Sullivan: Russia's War Against the West

  • When
    03 Oct 2025
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  John J. Sullivan is an American attorney and government official whose career spans four decades in the public and private sectors. He has served five presidents in prominent diplomatic and legal positions, including as US ambassador to the Russian Federation under Presidents Joe Biden (January 2021 to October 2022) and Donald Trump (December 2019 to January 2021). Before his post in Moscow, he served for almost three years as the US Deputy Secretary of State. He is currently a distinguished fellow at Georgetown and Columbia universities, a foreign affairs contributor to CBS News, a partner in Mayer Brown LLP, and a member of the congressionally chartered, bipartisan Commission on Reform and Modernization of the Department of State. He splits his time between Washington, DC, area and Connecticut. 
  

  
  

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register on-line in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Marwan Muasher: Shifting Political Dynamics in the Middle East

  • When
    24 Oct 2025
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  
  

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                    GLOBAL SPEAKERS PROGRAM

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  Biography

  Marwan Muasher is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment, where he oversees the Endowment’s research in Washington and Beirut on the Middle East. Muasher served as foreign minister (2002–2004) and Deputy Prime Minister (2004–2005) of Jordan, and his career has spanned the areas of diplomacy, development, civil society, and communications. He was also a senior fellow at Yale University in 2010-2011.  He was senior vice president of external affairs at the World Bank from 2007 to 2010.

   He is the author of The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation (Yale University Press, 2008), and The Second Arab Awakening and the Battle for Pluralism (Yale University Press, 2014).  He is a graduate of Purdue University.

  
  

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Joseph Cirincione: America's National Security and Nuclear Weapons

  • When
    07 Nov 2025
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  Joseph Cirincione is a national security analyst and author with over 40 years of experience in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Council for Foreign Relations and the author or editor of seven books, including Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late and Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons. Cirincione is the Vice Chair of the Center for International Policy Board of Directors and the publisher of “Strategy & History” on Substack. 

  He served previously as president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation, as vice president for national security at the Center for American Progress, director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and as a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, among other positions. He worked as a congressional investigator for over nine years on the Armed Services Committee and the Government Operations Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

  He taught at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service for twelve years, having graduated from the MSFS masters program. He appears frequently on television, radio and in the media and is the author of over one thousand articles and reports on defense and national security.

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Book Club - The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War by Fred Kaplan

  • When
    13 Nov 2025
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn Road, Hilton Head Island

  Registration is closed

  From the author of the classic The Wizards of Armageddon and Pulitzer Prize finalist comes the definitive history of American policy on nuclear war - and Presidents’ actions in nuclear crises - from Truman to Trump.

  Fred Kaplan, hailed by The New York Times as “a rare combination of defense intellectual and pugnacious reporter,” takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Tank” in the Pentagon, and the vast chambers of Strategic Command to bring us the untold stories - based on exclusive interviews and previously classified documents - of how America’s presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just barely avoided nuclear war from the dawn of the atomic age until today.

  Kaplan’s historical research and deep reporting will stand as the permanent record of politics. Discussing theories that have dominated nightmare scenarios from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Kaplan presents the unthinkable in terms of mass destruction and demonstrates how the nuclear war reality will not go away, regardless of the dire consequences.

  
  

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• Dennis Kwok: The Fall of Hong Kong and the Implications for Taiwan

  • When
    14 Nov 2025
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  Dennis Kwok is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning lawyer, a former pro-domacracy lawmaker in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, and elected as its sole representative of the legal profession. A partner with New York law firm Elliot Kwok Levine & Jaroslaw, Dennis co-heads the firm’s International Disputes and China Corporate Advisory practice. He works on complex litigation and arbitration and advises on cross-border commercial transactions involving the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong in jurisdictions such as Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, and the Philippines. Dennis frequently advises democratic governments, policymakers, and MNCs worldwide on geopolitical matters.

  Aside from his legal career, Dennis served as a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School from 2021 to 2023, where his research focused on the legal and political risks emerging from the China region. He was appointed a Distinguished Scholar at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He also served as a visiting Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo and as a visiting Lecturer at Northeastern University.

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Andrew Wells-Dang: US-Vietnam Relations 50 Years After the War: Unlikely Partners

  • When
    05 Dec 2025
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  Andrew Wells-Dang a leading non-governmental expert in Southeast Asian politics, civil society, networks and governance. From 2021-2025, he led the Vietnam War Legacies and Reconciliation Initiative as a senior expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. He previously lived in Asia for over 20 years, holding senior positions as Deputy Director, Advocacy Strategy and Learning at CARE,  Senior Government Advisor at Oxfam, and Deputy Country Representative/Vietnam Representative for Catholic Relief Services. He has been responsible for managing education, governance and judicial reform programs funded by the U.S., UK, European Union and other donors. He was an advisor to multiple advocacy networks in China and Vietnam, Washington Representative of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, and was an independent researcher based in Hoi An, Vietnam.

  Wells-Dang is the author of Civil Society Networks in China and Vietnam: Informal Pathbreakers in Health and the Environment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), co-author of Pathways to Reconciliation: How Americans and Vietnamese have Transformed their Relationship (USIP, 2024), and authored numerous journal articles, book chapters and op-eds. 

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• David Satterfield: The Trump Foreign Policy: A First Year Assessment

  • When
    09 Jan 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  The Honorable David M. Satterfield is the director of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. He has more than four decades of diplomatic and leadership experience, including service as special envoy for the Horn of Africa, assistant secretary of state, National Security Council staff director and as ambassador to Lebanon and Turkey and charge d’affaires in Iraq and Egypt.  In October, 2023 he was appointed Presidential Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues to lead US diplomacy in addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.  In April, 2024 he stepped down from this role and continues to serve as a Consultant to the Department of State.

  Satterfield’s extensive bilateral and multinational negotiating background most notably includes the 1995 Roadmap for Israel-Palestinian Peace (with the United Nations), the 2000 withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from Lebanon and Blue Line boundary agreement (with the United Nations), and the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq. As the State Department’s coordinator for Iraq, he managed the largest domestic staff in the department’s history and directed fundamental reforms to the Foreign Service.

  Satterfield conceived and directed the comprehensive modernization of military and civilian peacekeeping operations and led fundraising efforts with the U.S. Congress and donor governments.

  Among other honors, Satterfield is the recipient of the highest Department of State recognition, the Secretary of State Distinguished Service Award; the highest award for senior federal executives, the Office of Personnel Management Distinguished Federal Executive Rank Award; and the highest Department of Defense award for career federal civilians, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service.

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Ajay Chhibber: India's Rise in a Changing World

  • When
    23 Jan 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  Dr. Ajay Chhibber is Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP), George Washington University, Washington D.C., and Distinguished Fellow, Isaac Center for Public Policy, Ashoka University, India. 
  

   He was the first Director General, Independent Evaluation Office, India (Minister of State) and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy from 2015-2017. He served as Assistant Secretary General, UN and Assistant Administrator, UNDP from 2008-2013 where he led the Department for Asia and the Pacific. At the World Bank he served over 24 years in senior positions including Country Director for Turkey and Vietnam, and Director for the seminal 1997 World Development Report on the Role of the State.  

   He has a Ph. D from Stanford University, an MA from the Delhi School of Economics, and was awarded the David Rajaram Prize for best all-rounder at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University where he received a BA with Honors in Economics. He has also completed advanced management courses at Harvard University and at INSEAD, France.

  Chhibber has written six books on Economic Development and published numerous articles in major journals. He writes regularly for newspapers and business magazines.  His latest book Unshackling India: Hard Truths and Clear Choices for Economic Revival was declared Best New Book in Economics by the Financial Times and awarded India 2022 Economic Forum Literary Award.

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Barbara Slavin: Risks and Opportunities in Iran-US Relations

  • When
    06 Feb 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  Barbara Slavin is a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and a lecturer in international affairs at George Washington University. Prior to joining Stimson, she founded and directed the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council and led a bi-partisan task force on Iran. The author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation (2007), she is a regular commentator on US foreign policy and Iran on NPR, PBS and C-Span.

  A career journalist, Slavin served as a columnist for Al-Monitor; assistant managing editor for world and national security at the Washington Times; senior diplomatic reporter for USA Today; Cairo and Beijing correspondent for The Economist and as an editor at the New York Times Week in Review. She covered such key foreign policy issues as the US-led ‘war on terrorism,’ policy toward ‘rogue’ states, the Iran-Iraq war and the Arab-Israeli conflict. She has traveled to Iran nine times. Slavin also served as a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where she wrote Bitter Friends, and as a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace, where she researched and wrote the report, Mullahs, Money and Militias: How Iran Exerts Its Influence in the Middle East.

   

  
  

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Feisal al-Istrabadi: Iraq - Two Decades After the War

  • When
    20 Feb 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  Ambassador Feisal Amin Rasoul al-Istrabadi served as Iraq’s Ambassador to the UN from 2004 to 2010. He served as a legal advisor to the Iraqi minister for foreign affairs during the negotiations for the U.N. Security Council Resolution that recognized the reassertion by Iraq of its sovereignty. He was also principal legal drafter of Iraq’s interim constitution, the Law of Administration of the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period. Before contributing to the reconstruction of Iraq, Istrabadi was a practicing trial lawyer in the United States for 15 years. 

  He is the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East at Indiana University Bloomington, where he is also professor of international law and diplomacy at the Maurer School of Law and the School of Global and International Studies. He is a professor by courtesy at IUB’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. Istrabadi focuses his research on the processes of building legal and political institutions in countries in transition from dictatorship to democracy. He recently co-edited The Future of ISIS: Regional and International Implications with Sumit Ganguly.

   

  
  

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Juan Cruz Diaz: Argentina-US Relations under Presidents Javier Millei and Donald Trump

  • When
    06 Mar 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  
  

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                    GLOBAL SPEAKERS PROGRAM

  ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

  Biography

  

  Juan Cruz Díaz is Managing Director at Cefeidas Group and a Special Advisor at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA). He also co-directs the Corporate Governance Program at the Universidad de San Andrés.
  

  At Cefeidas Group, he offers strategic, regulatory, and policy advice to companies operating in Latin America. Prior to founding Cefeidas, he held positions as director of Public Policy Programs at the AS/COA and senior editor at Americas Quarterly. Díaz has consulted for the Organization of American States, the International Finance Corporation, and the World Bank.

  Díaz, a lawyer with a master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, specialized in international business and Latin American politics. He has received training from institutions such as Harvard University, the University of Texas in Austin, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, and the Université Laval, Quebec. Díaz has been a fellow of the United Nations Foundation, the Government of Quebec, and the U.S. Department of State.

  Currently, Díaz serves on the Consultative Council at the Centre for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC) and is a leadership associate of the Inter-American Dialogue. His insights are frequently featured in renowned international publications, including The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg News, Latin Finance, and Reuters.

  
  

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Sean McFate: Sneaky War and the Dark Arts

  • When
    20 Mar 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  Dr. Sean McFate is a foreign policy expert, author, novelist and consultant to the U.S. military, U.S. intelligence community, United Nations, and Hollywood.  He is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington DC think tank, and a professor of strategy at the National Defense University and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Additionally, he serves as an Advisor to Oxford University’s Centre for Technology and Global Affairs. 

  McFate’s career began as a paratrooper and officer in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and ultimately became a private military contractor and paramilitary. In the world of international business, McFate was a Vice President at TD International, a boutique political risk consulting firm, a program manager at DynCorp International, a consultant at BearingPoint (now Deloitte Consulting), and an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton.

  McFate has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, Politico, and Military Review among many other publications. He has appeared on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, WSJ, FT, Economist. McFate authored The New Rules of War: How America Can Win—Against Russia, China, and Other Threats that was named  “Book of the Year” by The Economist, The Times [UK], and The Evening Standard, and is included on West Point’s “Commandant’s Reading List.”

  McFate holds a BA from Brown University, MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a Ph.D. in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). 

   

  
  

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Mary Thompson-Jones: The Arctic - Competition in the Melting North

  • When
    10 Apr 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  Mary Thompson-Jones, Ed.D. is a Professor at the U.S. Naval War College. Before joining the USNWC, she directed a master’s program in Global Studies at Northeastern University. 

  Prior to entering academia, she had a highly successful diplomatic career, spanning 23 years a as U.S. Foreign Service Officer in leadership roles in the Czech Republic, Canada, Guatemala, Spain, and Washington, D.C. She retired with the rank of Minister-Counselor, having received several Superior and Meritorious Honor awards along the way.

  Dr. Thompson-Jones’ new book, America in the Arctic, Foreign Policy and Competition in the Melting North, has been praised by Sen. Angus King, I-ME, as “a finely crafted chart that can guide us through rough seas ahead to a peaceful and prosperous future,” and by Amb. Paula Dobriansky, former Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, as “a compelling testament to the importance of U.S. engagement and a must-read for policymakers.” She is also the author of To the Secretary: Leaked Embassy Cables and America’s Foreign Policy Disconnect

   

  
  

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Joby Warrick: Twilight of the Jackal - From the World's First Super-Terrorist to Syria 2026

  • When
    24 Apr 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  Joby Warrick is a best-selling author and a national security correspondent for The Washington Post. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he served for 27 years with the Post’s national and investigative staffs, reporting from Washington and scores of cities around the world. In addition to his latest book, “Red Line,” he is the author of two previous two nonfiction books, including “The Triple Agent” (Doubleday, 2011), a New York Times best-seller about a CIA operation in Afghanistan; as well as “Black Flags” (Doubleday, 2015), a narrative account of the personalities and events that gave rise to the Islamic State. “Black Flags” was listed as one of the best books of 2015 by the New York Times, The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and numerous other publications, and was the recipient of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction.

    In more than two decades as a Washington Post reporter, Warrick has written extensively on topics ranging from Middle East conflicts and terrorism to nuclear proliferation and climate change. His articles about illicit weapons trafficking won the Overseas Press Club of America’s Bob Considine Award for the best newspaper interpretation of international affairs.

     Before coming to The Post, Warrick was an investigative reporter for The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., where he co-authored “Boss Hog,” a series of stories that documented the political and environmental fallout caused by factory farming in the Southeast. The series won the 1996 “Gold Medal” Pulitzer Prize for public service and nine other national and regional awards. Prior to that, Warrick was a foreign correspondent for United Press International in Eastern Europe, where he covered the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

   

  
  

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Linda Weissgold: Seeing the World Through an Intelligence Lens

  • When
    08 May 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Biography

  

  Linda Weissgold is an Adjunct Professor at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service following a remarkable 37-year career at the Central intelligence Agency. She was the CIA’s Deputy Director for Analysis from March 2020 until April 2023. In that role, she was responsible for the quality of all-source intelligence analysis at the CIA for our nation’s top decision makers and she oversaw the professional development of the officers who produce it.  Linda was part of the creation and delivery of intelligence analysis on a variety of complex issues and in multiple settings. The units she guided, including as the head of the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis, generated insights that informed US policy and operations across multiple Administrations and helped to identify Usama Bin Laden’s location and the rise of ISIS. For more than two years, she served as President George W. Bush’s intelligence briefer. 

  A skilled communicator experienced in the coverage of urgent and controversial issues, Linda is a champion of analytic tradecraft, integrity, and objectivity in intelligence analysis. She is widely recognized for her unwavering dedication to the CIA’s national security mission and its officers and is a proud member of the board of directors for the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation where she continues her commitment to the intelligence community and fostering the next generation of professionals. 

  Weissgold holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in international economics and finance. 

   

  
  

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

  Show details