Benjamin Valentino is a Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and Chair of the Government Department. His research interests include the causes and consequences of violent conflict and American foreign and security policies. At Dartmouth he teaches courses on international relations, international security, American foreign policy, the causes and prevention of genocide and serves as co-director the Government Department Honors Program. He is also the faculty coordinator for the War and Peace Studies Program at Dartmouth’s Dickey Center for International Understanding. Professor Valentino’s book, Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, received the Edgar S. Furniss Book Award for making an exceptional contribution to the study of national and international security. His work has appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, The American Political Science Review, Security Studies, International Organization, Public Opinion Quarterly, World Politics and The Journal of Politics. He is currently working on several research projects focusing on public opinion on the use of force and developing early warning models of large-scale violence against civilians.

*Please contact Tracy Hines (tmhines23@stanford.edu) for any inquires regarding General Kehler.

Prior to his retirement on January 1, 2014, General Kehler was the Commander of United States Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.  In that role he was directly responsible to the Secretary of Defense and President for the plans and operations of all U. S. forces conducting global strategic deterrence, nuclear alert, global strike, space, cyberspace and associated operations.  While in command, he crafted and implemented critical elements of policies and plans to deter strategic attacks against the U.S. and its key allies and led a joint team of military members and civilians to 100% mission success in multiple, high-stakes global operations.  He also integrated Department of Defense (DOD) activities for global missile defense, combating weapons of mass destruction, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.  His forces directly supported combat operations in Southwest Asia and North Africa.

General Kehler’s military career spanned almost thirty-nine years of service that included progressively important operational and staff assignments.  He commanded units at the squadron, group, wing, major command, and combatant command levels, and had a broad range of operational experience in Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, space launch, space control, space surveillance and missile warning.  Before taking command of Strategic Command, General Kehler commanded Air Force Space Command (predecessor to U.S. Space Force) where he organized, trained, and equipped airmen conducting mission-ready nuclear missile, space, and cyberspace operations.  His command designed the Air Force’s inaugural blueprint, operating concept, organizational structure, and personnel program to meet emerging cyberspace challenges. 

His staff assignments included tours with the Air Staff, Strategic Air Command, Air Force Space Command, and the Joint Staff.  He was also assigned to the Secretary of the Air Force’s Office of Legislative Liaison where he was the point man on Capitol Hill for matters regarding the President’s ICBM Modernization Program.  As Director of the National Security Space Office, General Kehler integrated the activities of a number of DOD and Intelligence Community organizations on behalf of the Undersecretary of the Air Force and Director, National Reconnaissance Office. 

General Kehler entered the Air Force in 1975 as a Distinguished Graduate of the Pennsylvania State University R.O.T.C. program, has master’s degrees from the University of Oklahoma in Public Administration and the Naval War College in National Security and Strategic Studies, and completed executive level programs at Carnegie-Mellon University, Syracuse University, and Harvard University.

Since his retirement, General Kehler has continued to apply his expertise as a consultant, corporate director and trustee, and senior advisor and fellow to a number of prominent public, private, and educational institutions. He writes and speaks on matters of national security. Bob and his late wife have two adult sons and two grandsons. Time permitting, he enjoys playing the guitar and golf.

Jackie Kerr is a Professor in the College of Information and Cyberspace (CIC) at National Defense University (NDU).  She is also a Nonresident Fellow with the Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Program and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies in the School of Foreign Service.  Her work focuses on digital and emerging technologies and their current and future impacts on international politics, national security, and democracy.  She has conducted research and taught on the digital politics of authoritarian regimes, the role of information technologies in civil society and protest mobilization, cyber domain strategy, global Internet governance, the role of artificial intelligence in national security and foreign policy, and on the role of digital technologies in the politics of Russia, China, and Eurasia.  While at NDU, Dr. Kerr previously served as Senior Research Fellow for Defense and Technology Futures at the Center for Strategic Research (2020-2024) and the Center for Emerging Technology and Future Warfare (2024-2025) within the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS).  In 2019-2020, she served as a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary (STAS), where she advised on digital technology policy, particularly as it pertains to human rights, democracy, and national security.  From 2016 to 2019, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she led work on cybersecurity, cyber domain strategy, and information conflict.  Dr. Kerr was previously a Science, Technology, and Public Policy Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a Visiting Scholar at Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, a Cybersecurity Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and has held research fellowships in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Qatar.  She also has prior professional experience as a software engineer with Comcast and Symantec.  Dr. Kerr holds a PhD and MA in Government from Georgetown University, and an MA in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and BAS in Mathematics and Slavic Languages and Literatures from Stanford University. 

David Traven joined CISAC as a MacArthur Nuclear Security Fellow in July 2014. He received his PhD. in Political Science at Ohio State University in 2013. From January 2013 to June 2014 he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Kenyon College. His research examines the evolution of the law and ethics of war in international relations, and he is particularly interested in understanding how moral cognition and emotion shape the creation of norms that protect the victims of armed conflict, especially civilians. Dr. Traven is currently working on a book manuscript that examines how moral intuitions influence the creation and the effectiveness of the norms of war across cultures.