A National Security Discussion

The New Albany Lecture Series kicks off its 14th season with a national security discussion featuring former CIA Director and U.S. Army General (Ret.) David Petraeus with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch moderated by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and op-ed columnist for The New York Times Bret Stephens.

DAVID PETRAEUS
General, U.S. Army (Retired)
Former Director of the CIA

General David Petraeus, U.S. Army (Ret.) is one of the leading battlefield commanders and strategists of our time. He served over 37 years in the U.S. 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, U.S. Central Command, and Coalition 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 a strategic advisor to multiple firms, is a member of the Simon and Schuster Advisory Board, and is a personal venture capitalist, invested in over 30 startups. Additionally, he is the Kissinger Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson School and is the co-author, with Andrew Roberts, of the award-winning, New York Times best-selling book, Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine.

General Petraeus graduated with distinction from the U.S. Military Academy, earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University in international relations and economics, completed a fellowship at Georgetown, and has held academic appointments at 5 universities (USMA, USC, Harvard, CUNY’s Honors College, University of Birmingham (England)) in addition to his current position at Yale. He is the only person in Army history to be the top graduate of both the demanding U.S. Army Ranger School and the year-long Command and General Staff College Course. 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, two NATO Meritorious Service Medals, the Combat Action Badge, the Ranger tab, and Air Assault 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 2007 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, Princeton University’s Madison Medalist, and sanctioned by Russia (in 2022).

MARIE YOVANOVITCH
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine
New York Times Bestselling Author

The former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and bestselling author of the memoir Lessons from the Edge shares insights on the region and the current crisis as well as experiences from her 33-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service.

Marie Yovanovitch served three times as U.S. Ambassador, most recently in Kyiv as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. Previously, she served as U.S. Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic (2005-2008) and the Republic of Armenia (2008-2011). She retired from the Foreign Service in 2020 and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.

Born into a family that survived both Soviet and Nazi terror before emigrating to the U.S., Yovanovitch rose to the top of her profession in the crucible of the former USSR. Following early assignments in Moscow, London, Ottawa, and Mogadishu, she served as Deputy Director of the Russia Desk and then, as a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, she was named Deputy Chief in Ukraine. Within the Department of State, Ambassador Yovanovitch has worked on the Russia desk, the Office of European Security Affairs, and the Operations Center. She also served as the Dean of the School of Language Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State and as the Deputy Commandant and International Advisor at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, National Defense University.

Ambassador Yovanovitch earned the Senior Foreign Service Performance Award eight times and the State Department’s Superior Honor Award on nine occasions. She is the recipient of two Presidential Distinguished Service Awards and the Secretary’s Diplomacy in Human Rights Award. Following her retirement, Ambassador Yovanovitch received the Trainor Award for Excellence in the Conduct of Diplomacy from Georgetown University, the inaugural Richard G. Lugar Award from Indiana University, the 2020 PEN/Benenson Courage Award from Pen/America, the Morgenthau Award from the Armenian Assembly of America, the American Spirit Award for Distinguished Public Service from the Common Good, and the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government.

In early 2022, Marie Yovanovitch’s memoir, Lessons From The Edge, was an instant New York Times bestseller. The late Madeleine Albright called the book “A brilliant, engaging, and inspiring memoir from one of America’s wisest and most courageous diplomats—essential reading for current policymakers, aspiring public servants, and anyone who cares about America’s role in the world.”

BRET STEPHENS
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author
Op-Ed Columnist for The New York Times

Bret Stephens is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times.

Since joining The New York Times in 2017, Stephens has written about foreign policy, domestic politics and cultural issues. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013 for his commentary at The Wall Street Journal, and previously served as editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, a position he took at the age of 28. He has reported stories from Gaza to Greenland, and is the author of “America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder,” published in 2014.

Bret is the author of America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder, released in November 2014, and is currently working on a book about the free world. He is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including three honorary doctorates, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. In 2022, the government of Russia banned him for life from visiting that country.

In addition to his work at The Times, in 2021 Bret became editor-in-chief of Sapir (sapirjournal.org), a Jewish quarterly published by the Maimonides Fund. The mission of Sapir is to offer ideas for a thriving Jewish future. He is also currently at work on a book about the future of the free world.

Bret was raised in Mexico City and holds a B.A. from the University of Chicago and an MSc. from the London School of Economics. He sits on numerous academic advisory boards and was a co-founder, with Garry Kasparov, of the Renew Democracy Initiative, an organization dedicated to advancing democratic principles throughout the world.

He and his wife, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, a music critic and entrepreneur, live near New York City and have three children.