Hoover Workshops on Urgent Security Choices

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The world is in an exceptional period of crisis, arguably the most dangerous since 1962. Meanwhile, governments can no longer escape making choices about how they will shape the future global commons, as they adapt to the most important age of technological change in a century.

Hoover has created a new initiative, “Workshops on Urgent Security Choices”. This is not a long-term research program on a particular subject. Instead, the workshops will focus on vital strategic choices that may arise in the next 1-2 years. We will identify and examine specific policy questions that lie on the immediate horizon, where we believe that expert knowledge, deep and practical analysis can help provide strategic guidance to policymakers.

Led by Philip Zelikow, the program will draw upon Hoover’s own considerable network of talent and experience and on the expertise of others in the United States and beyond, to engage veteran crisis managers and strategic thinkers – not just to offer analysis and ideas about what to do, but also to tackle the ‘how’ – the real test of statecraft.

“In 1919 the Hoover Institution was born to help understand a great and terrible era of upheaval. It is fitting that Hoover now adds this practical contribution as we enter another such age of change.” — Condoleezza Rice, 2024

“The main challenge may be in the short-term. If the United States and its partners can weather the current international and domestic political crises, the broader fundamentals for the United States and the free world are promising. They are especially promising in comparison with the courses that their adversaries are charting. But first ….” – Philip Zelikow, 2024

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Philip Zelikow

Botha-Chan Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

Philip Zelikow is the Botha-Chan Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. For 25 years he held a chaired professorship in history at the University of Virginia. For seven years before that, he was an associate professor at Harvard University.

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John Bew

Distinguished Visiting Fellow

John Bew is a distinguished academic who has served in senior positions at the highest levels of the UK government. Bew spent over five years as the chief Foreign Policy Advisor in No10 Downing Street, working for four Prime Ministers and through two general elections. He was the author of the last two UK national security strategies and intimately involved in the foreign policy challenges of that period, from AUKUS to the war in Ukraine.

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Alexander Bick

Visiting Fellow

Alexander Bick is Associate Professor of Practice in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has more than twenty years of experience in national security policy and research, including senior roles in the U.S. government, non-profit organizations, and academic institutions. His work focuses on strategy, international crisis response, and strengthening mechanisms to anticipate and prepare for an uncertain future.

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Program Management

Jacquelyn Johnstone

Assistant Director for Institutional Programming

Jacquelyn Johnstone is Assistant Director for Institutional Programming at the Hoover Institution where she is responsible for strategy, planning, resourcing, execution and delivery of several new and existing research and engagement programs. She also worked in the financial sector and as a consultant on open data and privacy regulations in Australia and the UAE. Jacquelyn held positions in both the U.S. State and Defense Departments and was Deputy Director of Moby Group, Afghanistan’s largest independent media company. She began her career in communications and was the Marketing Director of Wired magazine. Jacquelyn holds a MA from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

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