The Lecture Series on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats complements Vanderbilt's annual Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats and its purpose to address the most pressing challenges by fostering dialogue and collaboration on some of the most complex national security topics.
Learn more about previous and upcoming lectures:
Annie Jacobsen, NYT Bestselling Author
October 23, 2025
Annie Jacobsen is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author. Her books include: Area 51; Operation Paperclip, The Pentagon's Brain; The Pentagon's Brain; Phenomena; Surprise, Kill Vanish, and First Platoon.
Her newest book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, is an international bestseller.
Jacobsen’s books have been named Best of the Year and Most Anticipated by outlets including The Washington Post, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Vanity Fair, Apple, and Amazon. She has appeared on countless TV programs and media platforms—from PBS Newshour to Joe Rogan—discussing war, weapons, government secrecy, and national security. Audiences have ranged from The Vatican to The United Nations.
She also writes and produces TV, including Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan.
Jacobsen graduated from Princeton University where she was Captain of the Women’s Ice Hockey Team. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Kevin and their two sons.
General Stanley McChrystal (Ret.), NYT Bestselling Author
September 29, 2025
Stan McChrystal founded McChrystal Group in January 2011 to deliver innovative leadership solutions to businesses globally in order to help them transform and succeed in challenging, dynamic environments. As Founder and a Partner, he advises senior executives at multinational corporations on navigating complex change and building stronger teams.
A retired four-star general, Stan is the former commander of US and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) Afghanistan and the former commander of the nation’s premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). He is best known for developing and implementing a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, and for creating a cohesive counter-terrorism organization that revolutionized the interagency operating culture.
Throughout his military career, Stan commanded a number of elite organizations, including the 75th Ranger Regiment. After 9/11 until his retirement in 2010, he spent more than 6 years deployed to combat in a variety of leadership positions. In June 2009, the President of the United States and the Secretary General of NATO appointed him to be the Commander of US Forces Afghanistan and NATO ISAF. His command included more than 150,000 troops from 45 allied countries. On August 1, 2010 he retired from the US Army.
In 2013, Stan published his memoir, My Share of the Task, which was a New York Times bestseller; and is an author of Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, which was a New York Times bestseller in 2015. Stan also co-authored Leaders: Myth and Reality, a Wall Street Journal Bestseller based on the epochal Parallel Lives by Plutarch. He previously served as a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where he also taught a course on Leadership. He currently sits on the boards of Navistar International Corporation, Siemens Government Technology, and JetBlue Airways. He is a sought-after speaker, giving speeches on leadership and team dynamics to organizations around the country.
A passionate advocate for national service and veterans’ issues, Stan is the Chair of the Board of Service Year Alliance. In this capacity, he advocates for a future in which a year of full-time service—a service year—is a common expectation and opportunity for all young Americans.
Stan is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and the Naval War College. He also completed year-long fellowships at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Liza Mundy, Journalist, NYT Bestselling Author
February 4, 2025
Liza Mundy is an award-winning journalist and the New York Times-bestselling author of five books including her latest work, The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA (2023). Her narrative non-fiction aims to engage, delight, and inform readers by providing a compelling take on important parts of American history that have long been overlooked, expanding our collective understanding of our past by telling true stories of the people, often unsung, who shaped our world. Kate Moore, author of Radium Girls, called her “one of our foremost historians.” The Sisterhood recounts the true story of the women espionage officers—tough, brilliant, resilient—who helped build the world’s foremost spy agency. It received starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus, which named it one of the most anticipated non-fiction titles of fall 2023, calling it “a story that deserves to be told about women who deserve to be remembered.” Pulitzer-Prize winning author Steve Coll called it a “rip-roaring read about spycraft” that rewrites our understanding of the events before and after the 9-11 attacks. Her previous book, Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II (2017), tells another true story of women’s contributions to American intelligence, recounting the lives and legacy of more than 10,000 women recruited to break Axis codes during World War II. Code Girls was a New York Times best-seller, a Washington Post best-seller, and a Wall Street journal best-seller. It won awards including “Best General Audience Intelligence Book” of 2018 from the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, which said that “Code Girls does for women of that era what Hidden Figures did for African American women of the 1960s and Windtalkers did for the native American code communicators of World War II.”
A former staff writer for the Washington Post, Mundy is also the New York Times-bestselling author of Michelle: A Biography, a 2008 biography of former First Lady Michelle Obama; and The Richer Sex, which explored the forces behind women’s rising economic power. She has appeared on television and radio shows including The Colbert Report, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, MSNBC, CNN, C-Span, Weekend Edition, All Things Considered, and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. A former staff writer for The Washington Post, she writes for the Atlantic, Politico, and Smithsonian, among others. She lives in Washington, DC–not far from the sites of both the Army and Navy WWII codebreaking operations–and in Los Angeles, CA. At various points in her life as a working parent she has worked full-time, part-time, all-night, at home, in the office, remotely, in person, on trains, in the car, alone, in crowds, under duress, and while simultaneously making dinner.
General Frank McKenzie (Ret.) , Executive Director, University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute, Cyber Florida
October 24, 2024
General (Ret) Kenneth F. “Frank” McKenzie, Jr. became the Executive Director of the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute in May 2022. In July 2022, he also became the Executive Director of the Florida Center for Cybersecurity, also known as Cyber Florida.
He is the former Commander of United States Central Command, retiring from that post in March 2022, capping off a 42-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps. He is currently the President of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Applied Engineering at the University of South Florida, a Distinguished Senior Fellow on National Security at the Middle East Institute, a Member of the International Advisory Committee of the National Council on U.S. Arab relations, and a Member of the National Security Advisory Council, U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.
Ambassador Nathaniel Fick, Ambassador at Large, Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy
February 28, 2024
Nathaniel C. Fick was sworn in on September 21, 2022 as the inaugural U.S. Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy. Prior to joining the State Department, Ambassador Fick was a technology executive and entrepreneur. He was CEO of the cybersecurity software company Endgame from 2012 through its acquisition by Elastic in 2019. Thereafter, he led Elastic’s information security business globally. Ambassador Fick spent nearly a decade as an operating partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, working with management teams to build technology businesses. In 2018, he was named by Fast Company magazine as one of the “100 Most Creative People in Business,” and Endgame was selected by Forbes as one of the “100 Best Cloud Companies in the World.” From 2009 to 2012, Ambassador Fick was CEO of the Center for a New American Security, a national security research organization in Washington. Earlier in his career, he served as a Marine Corps infantry and reconnaissance officer, including combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. His book about that experience, One Bullet Away, was a New York Times bestseller, a Washington Post “Best Book of the Year,” and one of the Military Times‘s “Best Military Books of the Decade.” Ambassador Fick graduated with high honors in Classics from Dartmouth College and holds an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
A Conversation with Ambassador Nathaniel Fick, February 28, 2024
General David H. Petraeus (Ret.) Partner, KKR and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute
November 10, 2023
General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.) is one of the leading battlefield commanders and strategists of our time. He served over 37 years in the US military culminating his career with six consecutive commands as a general officer, five of which were in combat, including command of the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, and NATO/US Forces in Afghanistan. He subsequently served as Director of the CIA, following confirmation by the Senate by a vote of 94-0, during a period of significant achievements in the global war on terror.
General Petraeus is now a Partner with the global investment firm KKR and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute, which he established in 2013. He also serves on corporate boards, is the Kissinger Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson School, and is the co-author, with Andrew Roberts, of Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine.
General Petraeus graduated with distinction from the US Military Academy, earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University, and has held academic appointments at 5 universities in addition to his current position at Yale. He is also Co-Chairman of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Global Advisory Council, Senior Vice President of the Royal United Services Institute, and a member of the Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, and Aspen Strategy Group.
His awards include four Defense Distinguished Service Medals, the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award, the Bronze Star Medal for Valor, the Combat Action Badge, the Ranger tab, and master parachutist wings. He has also been decorated by 14 foreign countries and is believed to be the only person in uniform to throw out the first pitch of a World Series game and do the coin toss for a Super Bowl. He was runner-up to Vladimir Putin for Time Person of the Year in 2007, the Daily Telegraph Man of the Year, twice a Time 100 selectee, three times a Foreign Policy top public intellectual, Prospect magazine’s Public Intellectual of the Year, one of US News and World Report’s Top 25 Leaders, and sanctioned by Russia (in 2022).
Mark T. Esper, 27th U.S. Secretary of Defense
September 26, 2023
Secretary Mark Esper began his tenure as secretary of defense in July 2019 with strong U.S. Senate confirmation. During his term, he faced a range of challenges, including navigating tensions with Iran, ongoing military operations in Afghanistan, nationwide civil unrest and the global COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, he implemented a new national defense strategy that emphasized China and Russia, while prioritizing international alliances, strengthening military capabilities and introducing transformative concepts such as the Space Force and enhanced cyber capabilities.
Before his role as defense secretary, Esper was the 23rd secretary of the army from 2017 to 2019. In this capacity, he oversaw a vast organization with a budget of $180 billion, established the U.S. Army Futures Command, enhanced recruitment standards and championed initiatives to support Army personnel and their families.
He served as an infantry officer with the 101st Airborne Division during the Gulf War in 1990–91 and later commanded an airborne rifle company in Europe as part of a NATO readiness task force. His military accolades include the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star and Combat Infantryman’s Badge. He retired from the Army in 2007 after a decade of active duty and 11 years in the National Guard and Army Reserve. Esper is currently a partner and board member in venture capital firm Red Cell Partners, while also serving on several private capital and public policy boards. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times.