Kimberly Marten 

A professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University

Kimberly Marten is a professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University, specializing in international relations, international security, environmental politics, and Russia. She is a faculty member and executive committee member of Columbia’s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies and Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. Her recent publications have analyzed Russia’s Wagner Group “private” military company (she was honored to testify before Congress on that topic in 2020 and 2022), Russian activities in Latin America (she was honored to testify before Congress on that topic in 2022); Russian activities in Africa; Russia/NATO relations and the Russian reaction to NATO enlargement; and the politics of the changing Arctic. She has written four books, including Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation (Princeton, 1993), which received the Marshall Shulman Prize, and Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States (Cornell, 2012). The Council on Foreign Relations commissioned her special report, Reducing Tensions between Russia and NATO (2017). In addition to her 30 academic journal articles and book chapters, she has written more than 50 policy analyses in publications including the Washington Quarterly, Foreign Affairs online, War on the Rocks, Lawfare, the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, the Huffington Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, the New York Daily News, and the New Republic, among others. She gives frequent invited presentations to the policy community in the U.S. and abroad. She is also a frequent media commentator and appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She earned her A.B. at Harvard and Ph.D. at Stanford. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Vanda Felbab-Brown

A senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC and the Director of The Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and co-director of the Africa Security Initiative at Brookings

Vanda Felbab-Brown

is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. She is also the director of Brookings’ Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and co-director of the Africa Security Initiative at Brookings. Previously, she was co-director of the Opioid Crisis in America: Domestic and International Dimensions. Dr. Felbab-Brown is an expert on international and internal conflicts, insurgency, terrorism, urban violence, and illicit economies. Her fieldwork has covered Afghanistan, South Asia, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Andean region, Mexico, Iraq, Somalia, the Horn of Africa, Nigeria, and other African regions. In 2020 and 2021, Dr. Felbab-Brown served as a senior advisor to the congressionally mandated USIP Afghanistan Study Group. She is the author of five books - Narco Noir: Mexico’s Cartels, Cops, and Corruption (forthcoming); The Extinction Market: Wildlife Trafficking and How to Counter It (2017); Militants, Criminals, and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder (2017; co-authored); Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counterinsurgency and State-Building in Afghanistan (2013); and Shooting Up: Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs (2010) as well as many policy reports, articles, opeds, and congressional testimonies. She frequently consults for the U.S. government. A recipient of numerous awards, Dr. Felbab-Brown received her Ph.D. in political science from MIT and her B.A. in government from Harvard University.

Samuel Ramani

An associate Fellow at RUSI and politics tutor at the University of Oxford

Dr. Samuel Ramani is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and a tutor of politics at the University of Oxford. Samuel is the author of two books on Russian foreign policy: "Russia in Africa: Resurgent Great Power or Bellicose Pretender? (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2023) and "Putin's War on Ukraine: Russia's Quest for Global Counter-Revolution" (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2023). Samuel is a regular contributor to major print media publications, such as Foreign Policy and the Washington Post, and to broadcast outlets, such as the BBC World Service, CNN International and Al Jazeera English. Samuel regularly advises major government agencies, such as the NATO Intelligence Fusion Center, NATO Headquarters, the UK FCDO, U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Defence on international security issues. 

Ivan U. Klyszcz

A Research Fellow at the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), Estonia

Dr Ivan U. Klyszcz is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and a tutor of politics at the University of Oxford. Samuel is the author of two books on Russian foreign policy: "Russia in Africa: Resurgent Great Power or Bellicose Pretender? (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2023) and "Putin's War on Ukraine: Russia's Quest for Global Counter-Revolution" (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2023). Samuel is a regular contributor to major print media publications, such as Foreign Policy and the Washington Post, and to broadcast outlets, such as the BBC World Service, CNN International and Al Jazeera English. Samuel regularly advises major government agencies, such as the NATO Intelligence Fusion Center, NATO Headquarters, the UK FCDO, U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Defence on international security issues.