Meet our Next Speaker
Douglas Lute
January 13, 2025
Topic: The Future of NATO
Ambassador Douglas Lute is the former United States Ambassador to NATO. Appointed by President Obama, he assumed the Brussels-based post in 2013 and served until 2017. During this period, he was instrumental in designing and implementing the 28-nation Alliance responses to the most severe security challenges in Europe since the end of the Cold War.
A career Army officer, in 2010 Lute retired from active duty as a lieutenant general after 35 years of service. In 2007 President Bush named him as Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor to coordinate the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2009 he was the senior White House official retained by President Obama and his focus on the National Security Council staff shifted to South Asia. Across these two Administrations, he served a total of six years in the White House.
Before being assigned to the White House, General Lute served as Director of Operations (J3) on the Joint Staff, overseeing U.S. military operations worldwide. From 2004 to 2006, he was Director of Operations for the United States Central Command, with responsibility for U.S. military operations in 25 countries across the Middle East, eastern Africa and Central Asia, in which over 200,000 U.S. troops operated.
Through his military-diplomatic career, he received numerous honors and awards, including three awards of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award, the Grand Officer of the Order of Merit for the Italian Republic, and the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit for the Federal Republic of Germany.
General Lute holds degrees from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and United States Military Academy at West Point, which named him a Distinguished Graduate in 2018. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; a charter member of the Senior Military Advisory Group of the United States Institute of Peace; a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy; and a member of the board of the Atlantic Council of the United States.
Meetings open to members and members’ guests only. Unless otherwise noted, all meetings take place at Elk Hall, 210 Rankin Street in Rockland. The speaker begins promptly at noon and lunch is served from 1 PM.
Audios of Past Presentations
Listed below are links to recent presentations. Click to listen:
- James Bosworth on Mapping Latin America’s Current Politics
- Clark Adams on Defense Diplomacy in Central Asia and Clark’s slides: Defense Diplomacy
- John Lee on China and Indo-Pacific Security
- Dr. Steven Koonin on The Realities of Climate and Energy. and Steve’s slides: Realities slides
- Dr. Elizabeth Cameron on National Security in an Age of Pandemic Threats
- Ambassador Lawrence Butler: NATO at 75—Relevant, Obsolete, or Dangerous?
- Jack Goldsmith on The Decline of Congress in the Conduct of Foreign Affairs, and accompanying slides
- Robert Einhorn on Nuclear Non-proliferation
- Matthew Goodwin on Brexit, Trump, Le Pen, and National Populism
- Ambassador Anne Hall: The Baltic Nations — Profiles in Courage
- Ambassador Jake Walles: The Israel-Gaza Conflict
- Heather Cox Richardson: Democracy Awakening
- John Deutch: Challenges to Future Climate Policy
- Thomas Blanton: The Downsides of Government Secrecy
- Shanthi Kalathil: Challenges to Democracy in the Age of Misinformation
- Ambassador Charles Ray: Why Africa Matters
- Tom Ricks: First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country
- Amna Nawaz: On the Frontlines: Reporting Overseas and Here at Home
- Christopher Costa: Counterterrorism and the Future Terrorism Threat
- Susan Landau: The Reality of Cyberwar — In Ukraine and Elsewhere
- Jon Wolfsthal: Is a New Era of Nuclear Danger Upon Us?
- Amb. Derek Mitchell: Democracy and International Security
- Admiral Michael Rogers: Russia and Ukraine
- Daniel Golden: Ransomware, a Global Challenge
- Ambassador Steven Pifer: Putin’s War: Ramifications and Response
- Christopher Miller: Warnings about America’s most important enemies
- John Sopko: Afghanistan, Lessons Unlearned
- Paul Bodnar: Financing the Low-Carbon Future
- Stacia George: Winning Without Weapons
- Amb. Laura Kennedy: Central Asia (unedited audio)
- David Cooper: Between Disarmament and Armageddon
- Steven Simon: The US and the Middle East: What Went Wrong?
- Jok Madut-Jok: US Military Miltary in Africa: A Source of Influence or a National Security Risk? Download Slides
- Gordon Adams: A new approach to formulating foreign policy
- Richard Kessler: The Effect of Congressional Polarization on Foreign Affairs
- Mitchell Zuckoff: 9/11 and its Aftermath
- Sean McFate: The Future of War
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