"Strategy and Policy in the Israel-Hamas War"

Samuel Helfont, Ph.D., Assoc. Prof. of Strategy and Policy, Naval Postgraduate School

This program has been scheduled at the last minute in light of the importance and timeliness of the subject. The originally scheduled speaker on Global Energy Politics has been moved to the February luncheon. Note: This program will commence at 11:50am and be completed around 1:00pm, and then lunch will be served. The switch in the normal sequence is to enable the professor to return to his scheduled classes. We will take our seats at 11:45am.

The presentation will discuss the objectives of each side in the Gaza conflict and how they hope to achieve them. It will highlight political considerations both domestically and internationally that guide and limit the main actors.

Samuel Helfont focuses on strategy and policy at the Naval War College, and does research on international history and politics in the Middle East. His latest book is Iraq against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order, Oxford University Press. Helfont’s work has been published in numerous periodicals such as Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post and The New Republic. He has a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton and an MA in Middle Eastern History from Tel Aviv University in Israel. He completed his post-doctoral lectureship at the University of Pennsylvania, and has affiliations with Stanford and the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. NPS awarded him the Naval War College research award in 2023 for his high level of scholarship excellence over the last 3 years. Helfont was an intelligence officer in the US Navy, is an Iraq War veteran, and served on counterterrorism missions with the Defense Intelligence Agency, the NSA, and the Office of Naval Intelligence.