A. Wess Mitchell is an author, historian, and former diplomat. He received a B.A. from Texas Tech University, an M.A. from Georgetown University, and a Ph.D. from the Otto Suhr Institut für Politikwissenschaft at Freie Universität in Berlin. From 2017 to 2019, he served in the Trump administration as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; his focus is classics and military history.
Major General (Retired) Viet Luong emigrated from Vietnam with his family to the United States in 1975 as a political refugee, upon the fall of Saigon.
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and Author, The Village.
Mark Moyar joined Hillsdale College in 2021 as the William P. Harris Chair in Military History. From 2018 to 2019, he served as the Director of the Office of Civilian-Military Cooperation at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Faculty roundtable featuring Miles Smith, Wilfred M. McClay, Paul A. Rahe, and Thomas G. West.
James Willbanks is Professor Emeritus at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College and a leading historian of the Vietnam War. His scholarship and teaching focus on operational history, counterinsurgency, and the strategic lessons of modern conflict.
George J. Veith is a historian and author specializing in the Vietnam War and U.S. foreign policy. He is the author of Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973–75, a definitive account of the collapse of South Vietnam and the Fall of Saigon.
Mark Moyar joined Hillsdale College in 2021 as the William P. Harris Chair in Military History. From 2018 to 2019, he served as the Director of the Office of Civilian-Military Cooperation at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
John Del Vecchio is a Vietnam War veteran and novelist whose work explores the lived reality of combat and its moral complexity. He is the author of The 13th Valley, widely regarded as one of the most authentic works of fiction about the Vietnam War.
Faculty panel featuring Wilfred McClay, Bradley J. Birzer, Andrew R. Finlayson, and Phillip Jennings.
William M. Matz Jr. is a retired U.S. Army major general and combat veteran of Korea, Panama, and Vietnam, where he was wounded during the Tet Offensive, and later served as executive secretary to Secretaries of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Frank Carlucci. A highly decorated soldier and former Secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission, he is also the author of My Toughest Battle: A Soldier’s Lifelong Struggle with Polio.
William Inboden is Director of the Alexander Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida and Professor of History, specializing in American foreign policy and grand strategy. A former National Security Council official, he is the author of influential works including Religion and American Foreign Policy and The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink.
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; his focus is classics and military history.
Jason M. Gehrke is Assistant Professor of History and Associate Director of the Center for Military History and Strategy at Hillsdale College.
Mattias Gassman is Assistant Professor of Humanities in the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education. He was previously a research fellow at the University of St. Andrews and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford.
Anthony Kaldellis’ research explores the history, culture, and literature of the east Roman empire from antiquity to the fifteenth century.
Charles Yost is Associate Professor of Politics at Hillsdale College, where he teaches and writes on foreign policy, intelligence, and the strategic foundations of statecraft. His research and teaching interests include Roman intelligence, imperial governance, and the lessons of classical Rome for understanding power, security, and political order.
Peter Heather is Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London and a leading historian of the Roman and post-Roman world. He is the author of several influential works on imperial decline, including The Fall of the Roman Empire and Empires and Barbarians.
Jeremy Black is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Exeter and a senior fellow of the British Foreign Policy Group and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize, he is the author of numerous influential works on military history and empire, including Tank Warfare and Imperial Legacies.
Ali A. Jalali is an Afghan politician, diplomat, and academic who served as Minister of Interior from 2003 to 2005 and later as a distinguished professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. A multilingual military and political analyst, he is the author of numerous works on political, military, and security issues in Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia.
Roundtable featuring Victor Davis Hanson, Paul A. Rahe, Mark Moyar, Jason Gehrke, and Edward A. Gutierrez.
Lester W. Grau is a senior analyst at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth and a retired U.S. Army infantry lieutenant colonel with more than five decades of service. He is the author of 18 books and numerous articles on tactical, operational, and geopolitical military subjects.
Kevin W. Farrell is a retired U.S. Army officer who commanded at the platoon, company, and battalion levels across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. He led American soldiers in combat during the Battle for Baghdad and served as an advisor to the Afghan National Army.
Dr. O'Hanlon is the Philip H. Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, and American national security policy.
Kelly Robert DeVries (born December 23, 1956) is an American historian specializing in the warfare of the Middle Ages. He is often featured as an expert commentator on television documentaries. He is professor of history at Loyola University Maryland and Honorary Historical Consultant at the Royal Armouries, UK.
Adrian Goldsworthy is an ancient historian, lecturer, and author of more than two dozen books and numerous articles and reviews on Greek and Roman history and military history. A graduate of St. John’s College, Oxford University, he received a D.Phil. in ancient history in 1994. He previously taught at Cardiff University, King’s College London, and the University of Notre Dame.
"It's especially my pleasure to be here, helping to celebrate Hillsdale's New Center for Military History and Grand Strategy."
- Ian Johnson
"That’s why I want to conclude just by noting again how thrilled I am that Hillsdale has set up the Center for Military History and Grand Strategy, and I really look forward to many more conversations here in years to come."
- Sean McMeekin
Faculty roundtable featuring Paul A. Rahe, Edward A. Gutierrez, Mark Moyar, and David Stewart.
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; his focus is classics and military history.