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• Book Club - Breaking the Engagement: How China Won & Lost America by David Shambaugh

  • When
    08 Jan 2026
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn Rd., Hilton Head Island
  • Spaces left
    24

  Register

  Note:   Registration opens one month in advance.

              

  ABSTRACT

  For over five decades following the 1972 rapprochement between the United States and China, the two countries seemed to be steadily building a sound relationship, even accounting for periodic setbacks like the Tiananmen Square massacre. The last decade, though, has seen a sharp increase in tensions and a complete reorientation of American policies toward China―from "engagement" to "competition."

  What happened? In Breaking the Engagement: How China Won & Lost America, esteemed scholar David Shambaugh examines the evolution, expansion, and disintegration of the American engagement strategy towards China.
  
  Shambaugh attributes the recent sharp deterioration of relations to a combination of China's actions and American expectations. Xi Jinping's increasingly assertive foreign policy and domestic repression has directly challenged American interests. More deeply, he argues that the real underlying cause is America's longstanding paternalistic approach to transform China into a liberal state and society which conforms with the US-led global liberal order. When China has generally evolved in this direction― politically, economically, socially, intellectually, and internationally―it corresponds with American aspirations and the two could cooperate. But when Beijing pushes back against this transformative strategy―which Beijing sees as subversion―Americans become disillusioned and U.S. policymakers see China as a malign regime, which must be countered.
  

  About the Author

  David Shambaugh is a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and founding Director of the China Policy Program in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He holds a continuing appointment as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as other professional organizations. Professor Shambaugh is recognized internationally as an authority on China and has been named one of the most influential China experts in the US. 
  

  He has authored two previous award winning is books on China, published more than 200 articles, is a frequent commentator in the international media, served as advisor to the United States government and several private foundations and corporations, and testified before the US Congress, the UK House of Commons, and the Canadian Parliament.   

  Professor Shambaugh received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan, and M.A. in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and B.A. cum laude in East Asian Studies from The Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He has been a visiting scholar at numerous international institutions abroad. 

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• David Satterfield: The Trump Foreign Policy: A First Year Assessment

  • When
    09 Jan 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

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  Biography

  The Honorable David M. Satterfield is the director of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. He has more than four decades of diplomatic and leadership experience, including service as special envoy for the Horn of Africa, assistant secretary of state, National Security Council staff director and as ambassador to Lebanon and Turkey and charge d’affaires in Iraq and Egypt.  In October, 2023 he was appointed Presidential Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues to lead US diplomacy in addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.  In April, 2024 he stepped down from this role and continues to serve as a Consultant to the Department of State.

  Satterfield’s extensive bilateral and multinational negotiating background most notably includes the 1995 Roadmap for Israel-Palestinian Peace (with the United Nations), the 2000 withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from Lebanon and Blue Line boundary agreement (with the United Nations), and the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq. As the State Department’s coordinator for Iraq, he managed the largest domestic staff in the department’s history and directed fundamental reforms to the Foreign Service.

  Satterfield conceived and directed the comprehensive modernization of military and civilian peacekeeping operations and led fundraising efforts with the U.S. Congress and donor governments.

  Among other honors, Satterfield is the recipient of the highest Department of State recognition, the Secretary of State Distinguished Service Award; the highest award for senior federal executives, the Office of Personnel Management Distinguished Federal Executive Rank Award; and the highest Department of Defense award for career federal civilians, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service.

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Ajay Chhibber: India's Rise in a Changing World

  • When
    23 Jan 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

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  Biography

  Dr. Ajay Chhibber is Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP), George Washington University, Washington D.C., and Distinguished Fellow, Isaac Center for Public Policy, Ashoka University, India. 
  

   He was the first Director General, Independent Evaluation Office, India (Minister of State) and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy from 2015-2017. He served as Assistant Secretary General, UN and Assistant Administrator, UNDP from 2008-2013 where he led the Department for Asia and the Pacific. At the World Bank he served over 24 years in senior positions including Country Director for Turkey and Vietnam, and Director for the seminal 1997 World Development Report on the Role of the State.  

   He has a Ph. D from Stanford University, an MA from the Delhi School of Economics, and was awarded the David Rajaram Prize for best all-rounder at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University where he received a BA with Honors in Economics. He has also completed advanced management courses at Harvard University and at INSEAD, France.

  Chhibber has written six books on Economic Development and published numerous articles in major journals. He writes regularly for newspapers and business magazines.  His latest book Unshackling India: Hard Truths and Clear Choices for Economic Revival was declared Best New Book in Economics by the Financial Times and awarded India 2022 Economic Forum Literary Award.

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Great Decisions Group 1

  • Start
    03 Feb 2026
  •  
  • End
    24 Mar 2026
  •  
  • Schedule
    8 sessions
  • Location
    Location: Lowcountry Presbyterian Church, 10 Simmonsville Rd., Bluffton, SC 29910
  • Spaces left
    15

  Register

  Created by the Foreign Policy Association of America (FPA) in 1954, Great Decisions Discussion Program is America’s largest grassroots discussion program that focuses on world affairs. The program model involves reading the Great Decisions Briefing Book and meeting in a group setting to discuss the most critical global issues facing America today.  Discussing the topics with other members plays vital role in your learning and understanding of these issues and everyone benefits from hearing different points of view. 

  Group 1 meets for 8 weeks on Tuesdays, 
  10:00 AM - 11:30 AM, starting February 3rd and ending March 24, 2026.

  Registration available to members only.

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• Great Decisions Group 2

  • Start
    04 Feb 2026
  •  
  • End
    25 Mar 2026
  •  
  • Schedule
    8 sessions
  • Location
    TBD HHI
  • Spaces left
    14

  Register

  Created by the Foreign Policy Association of America (FPA) in 1954, Great Decisions Discussion Program is America’s largest grassroots discussion program that focuses on world affairs. The program model involves reading the Great Decisions Briefing Book and meeting in a group setting to discuss the most critical global issues facing America today.  Discussing the topics with other members plays vital role in your learning and understanding of these issues and everyone benefits from hearing different points of view. 

  Group 2 meets for 8 weeks on Wednesday evenings,
  6:30PM - 8:00PM, starting February 4th and ending March 25, 2026

  Registration available to members only.

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• Great Decisions Group 3

  • Start
    05 Feb 2026
  •  
  • End
    26 Mar 2026
  •  
  • Schedule
    8 sessions
  • Location
    TBD HHI
  • Spaces left
    2

  Register

  Created by the Foreign Policy Association of America (FPA) in 1954, Great Decisions Discussion Program is America’s largest grassroots discussion program that focuses on world affairs. The program model involves reading the Great Decisions Briefing Book and meeting in a group setting to discuss the most critical global issues facing America today.  Discussing the topics with other members plays vital role in your learning and understanding of these issues and everyone benefits from hearing different points of view. 

  Group 3 meets for 8 weeks on Thursday,
  10:00 AM - 11:30 AM, starting February 5th and ending March 26, 2026.

  Registration available to members only.

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• Barbara Slavin: Risks and Opportunities in Iran-US Relations

  • When
    06 Feb 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

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  Biography

  Barbara Slavin is a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and a lecturer in international affairs at George Washington University. Prior to joining Stimson, she founded and directed the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council and led a bi-partisan task force on Iran. The author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation (2007), she is a regular commentator on US foreign policy and Iran on NPR, PBS and C-Span.

  A career journalist, Slavin served as a columnist for Al-Monitor; assistant managing editor for world and national security at the Washington Times; senior diplomatic reporter for USA Today; Cairo and Beijing correspondent for The Economist and as an editor at the New York Times Week in Review. She covered such key foreign policy issues as the US-led ‘war on terrorism,’ policy toward ‘rogue’ states, the Iran-Iraq war and the Arab-Israeli conflict. She has traveled to Iran nine times. Slavin also served as a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where she wrote Bitter Friends, and as a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace, where she researched and wrote the report, Mullahs, Money and Militias: How Iran Exerts Its Influence in the Middle East.

   

  
  

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Book Club - Enduring Hostility: The Making of America's Iran Policy by Dalia Dassa Kaye

  • When
    12 Feb 2026
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn Rd., Hilton Head Island
  • Spaces left
    30

  Registration is closed

  Note:   Registration opens one month in advance.            

  ABSTRACT

  A timely and rigorous analysis of a half-century of American policymakers' shifting perceptions of Iran, and how they have driven US-Iran relations. US–Iran hostility has endured for longer than the Cold War. Momentous geopolitical shifts, changing leaderships, and evolving domestic priorities have not fundamentally altered this antagonistic relationship. Standard explanations pin the blame for this enduring hostility on Iran and its leaders' revolutionary ideology and policies at odds with the United States and the West. While Iran bears significant blame for a deeply adversarial relationship—the country often engages in dangerous and repressive activities—this book demonstrates that "it's them, not us" accounts cannot alone explain America's posture toward this complicated but critically important country. Drawing on original interviews with former government officials, oral histories, memoirs, congressional hearings, archival material, and the author's own participation in dozens of Iran-related track two meetings, Dalia Dassa Kaye deftly explores how America's Iran policy is made, the people who make it, and the underlying ideas and perceptions that inform it. Dassa Kaye looks back at US policy toward Iran over the past four decades to help us look ahead, offering wider lessons for understanding American foreign policymaking and providing critical insights at a pivotal time of heightened military tensions in and around the Middle East.
  

  About the Author

  Dalia Dassa Kaye is a Senior Fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and former Senior Political Scientist and Director of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy. A recipient of many awards and fellowships, she speaks and publishes widely on US and Middle East policy.
  

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• Feisal al-Istrabadi: Iraq - Two Decades After the War

  • When
    20 Feb 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

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  Biography

  Ambassador Feisal Amin Rasoul al-Istrabadi served as Iraq’s Ambassador to the UN from 2004 to 2010. He served as a legal advisor to the Iraqi minister for foreign affairs during the negotiations for the U.N. Security Council Resolution that recognized the reassertion by Iraq of its sovereignty. He was also principal legal drafter of Iraq’s interim constitution, the Law of Administration of the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period. Before contributing to the reconstruction of Iraq, Istrabadi was a practicing trial lawyer in the United States for 15 years. 

  He is the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East at Indiana University Bloomington, where he is also professor of international law and diplomacy at the Maurer School of Law and the School of Global and International Studies. He is a professor by courtesy at IUB’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. Istrabadi focuses his research on the processes of building legal and political institutions in countries in transition from dictatorship to democracy. He recently co-edited The Future of ISIS: Regional and International Implications with Sumit Ganguly.

   

  
  

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Juan Cruz Diaz: Argentina-US Relations under Presidents Javier Millei and Donald Trump

  • When
    06 Mar 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

  Register

  
  

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                    GLOBAL SPEAKERS PROGRAM

  ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

  Biography

  

  Juan Cruz Díaz is Managing Director at Cefeidas Group and a Special Advisor at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA). He also co-directs the Corporate Governance Program at the Universidad de San Andrés.
  

  At Cefeidas Group, he offers strategic, regulatory, and policy advice to companies operating in Latin America. Prior to founding Cefeidas, he held positions as director of Public Policy Programs at the AS/COA and senior editor at Americas Quarterly. Díaz has consulted for the Organization of American States, the International Finance Corporation, and the World Bank.

  Díaz, a lawyer with a master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, specialized in international business and Latin American politics. He has received training from institutions such as Harvard University, the University of Texas in Austin, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, and the Université Laval, Quebec. Díaz has been a fellow of the United Nations Foundation, the Government of Quebec, and the U.S. Department of State.

  Currently, Díaz serves on the Consultative Council at the Centre for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC) and is a leadership associate of the Inter-American Dialogue. His insights are frequently featured in renowned international publications, including The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg News, Latin Finance, and Reuters.

  
  

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Book Club -Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

  • When
    12 Mar 2026
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn Rd., Hilton Head Island
  • Spaces left
    30

  Registration is closed

  Note:   Registration opens one month in advance.

  

  ABSTRACT
  
  To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough.
  
  Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next gener­ation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the problems of the 1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished.
  
  Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed. In a book exploring how we can move from a liberalism that not only protects and pre­serves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country, this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the fury so many rightfully feel.

  About the Author

  Ezra Klein is an opinion columnist and host of the award-winning Ezra Klein Show podcast at The New York Times. He is the author of Why We’re Polarized, an instant New York Times bestseller, named one of Barack Obama’s top books of 2022. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
  
  Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the host of the podcast Plain English. He is the author of the national bestseller Hit Makers and On Work, an anthology of his writing on labor and technology. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
  

  
  

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• Sean McFate: Sneaky War and the Dark Arts

  • When
    20 Mar 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

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  Biography

  Dr. Sean McFate is a foreign policy expert, author, novelist and consultant to the U.S. military, U.S. intelligence community, United Nations, and Hollywood.  He is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington DC think tank, and a professor of strategy at the National Defense University and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Additionally, he serves as an Advisor to Oxford University’s Centre for Technology and Global Affairs. 

  McFate’s career began as a paratrooper and officer in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and ultimately became a private military contractor and paramilitary. In the world of international business, McFate was a Vice President at TD International, a boutique political risk consulting firm, a program manager at DynCorp International, a consultant at BearingPoint (now Deloitte Consulting), and an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton.

  McFate has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, Politico, and Military Review among many other publications. He has appeared on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, WSJ, FT, Economist. McFate authored The New Rules of War: How America Can Win—Against Russia, China, and Other Threats that was named  “Book of the Year” by The Economist, The Times [UK], and The Evening Standard, and is included on West Point’s “Commandant’s Reading List.”

  McFate holds a BA from Brown University, MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a Ph.D. in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). 

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Book Club - America in the Arctic: Foreign Policy and Competition in the Melting North by Mary Thompson-Jones

  • When
    09 Apr 2026
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn Rd., Hilton Head Island
  • Spaces left
    30

  Registration is closed

  Note:   Registration opens one month in advance.

  

  ABSTRACT

  As climate change accelerates, the Arctic has become a frontline of global competition. Melting ice, rising temperatures, and swelling seas have made remote regions at once newly accessible and rife with new dangers. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has embarked on a substantial military buildup in the Arctic, and China has also turned its attention northward. The United States, however, has only recently begun to reestablish its Arctic presence after many years of waning influence.

  America in the Arctic offers a timely and compelling case for why the United States must deepen its commitment to a region threatened by climate change and geopolitical rivalry. Mary Thompson-Jones surveys past and present U.S. relations with the Arctic lands: Canada, Iceland, Greenland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia. She traces the history of the U.S. presence in the far north from the purchase of Alaska through the Cold War, arguing that lessons from the past should inform America’s relationships with its Arctic neighbors today. At its best, U.S. Arctic policy balanced security interests with residents’ needs and international cooperation on environmental and regional issues. In recent years, many policymakers scrambling to reassert U.S. leadership have framed their goals solely in security terms. Thompson-Jones argues that climate change now poses the greatest challenge, calling for a new approach that is inclusive of all the Arctic’s inhabitants. Bringing together national security expertise and historical insight, this book charts a course for American Arctic policy in a warming world.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mary Thompson-Jones is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and a former foreign service officer who attained the rank of minister counselor. She is the author of To the Secretary: Leaked Embassy Cables and America’s Foreign Policy Disconnect (2016). Her diplomatic experience spans more than two decades serving in the Czech Republic, Canada, Guatemala, Spain, and Washington, DC.

  
  

  
  

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• Mary Thompson-Jones: The Arctic - Competition in the Melting North

  • When
    10 Apr 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

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  Biography

  Mary Thompson-Jones, Ed.D. is a Professor at the U.S. Naval War College. Before joining the USNWC, she directed a master’s program in Global Studies at Northeastern University. 

  Prior to entering academia, she had a highly successful diplomatic career, spanning 23 years a as U.S. Foreign Service Officer in leadership roles in the Czech Republic, Canada, Guatemala, Spain, and Washington, D.C. She retired with the rank of Minister-Counselor, having received several Superior and Meritorious Honor awards along the way.

  Dr. Thompson-Jones’ new book, America in the Arctic, Foreign Policy and Competition in the Melting North, has been praised by Sen. Angus King, I-ME, as “a finely crafted chart that can guide us through rough seas ahead to a peaceful and prosperous future,” and by Amb. Paula Dobriansky, former Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, as “a compelling testament to the importance of U.S. engagement and a must-read for policymakers.” She is also the author of To the Secretary: Leaked Embassy Cables and America’s Foreign Policy Disconnect

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Joby Warrick: Twilight of the Jackal - From the World's First Super-Terrorist to Syria 2026

  • When
    24 Apr 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

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  Biography

  Joby Warrick is a best-selling author and a national security correspondent for The Washington Post. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he served for 27 years with the Post’s national and investigative staffs, reporting from Washington and scores of cities around the world. In addition to his latest book, “Red Line,” he is the author of two previous two nonfiction books, including “The Triple Agent” (Doubleday, 2011), a New York Times best-seller about a CIA operation in Afghanistan; as well as “Black Flags” (Doubleday, 2015), a narrative account of the personalities and events that gave rise to the Islamic State. “Black Flags” was listed as one of the best books of 2015 by the New York Times, The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and numerous other publications, and was the recipient of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction.

    In more than two decades as a Washington Post reporter, Warrick has written extensively on topics ranging from Middle East conflicts and terrorism to nuclear proliferation and climate change. His articles about illicit weapons trafficking won the Overseas Press Club of America’s Bob Considine Award for the best newspaper interpretation of international affairs.

     Before coming to The Post, Warrick was an investigative reporter for The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., where he co-authored “Boss Hog,” a series of stories that documented the political and environmental fallout caused by factory farming in the Southeast. The series won the 1996 “Gold Medal” Pulitzer Prize for public service and nine other national and regional awards. Prior to that, Warrick was a foreign correspondent for United Press International in Eastern Europe, where he covered the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

   

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Linda Weissgold: Seeing the World Through an Intelligence Lens

  • When
    08 May 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Location
    First Presbyterian Church, 540 William Hilton Pkwy, Hilton Head Island, SC

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  Biography

  

  Linda Weissgold is an Adjunct Professor at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service following a remarkable 37-year career at the Central intelligence Agency. She was the CIA’s Deputy Director for Analysis from March 2020 until April 2023. In that role, she was responsible for the quality of all-source intelligence analysis at the CIA for our nation’s top decision makers and she oversaw the professional development of the officers who produce it.  Linda was part of the creation and delivery of intelligence analysis on a variety of complex issues and in multiple settings. The units she guided, including as the head of the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis, generated insights that informed US policy and operations across multiple Administrations and helped to identify Usama Bin Laden’s location and the rise of ISIS. For more than two years, she served as President George W. Bush’s intelligence briefer. 

  A skilled communicator experienced in the coverage of urgent and controversial issues, Linda is a champion of analytic tradecraft, integrity, and objectivity in intelligence analysis. She is widely recognized for her unwavering dedication to the CIA’s national security mission and its officers and is a proud member of the board of directors for the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation where she continues her commitment to the intelligence community and fostering the next generation of professionals. 

  Weissgold holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in international economics and finance. 

  

  Guest Policy

  Guests may register in advance for $30 or at the door for $35. Please arrive at 9:30 am to check in. Advance registration opens one month before each event and closes the Wednesday before each event. There is no cost for WACHH members to attend.

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• Book Club - The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women of the CIA by Liza Mundy

  • When
    14 May 2026
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn Rd., Hilton Head Island
  • Spaces left
    30

  Registration is closed

  Note:   Registration opens one month in advance.

  

  ABSTRACT
  

  Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their talents and keep them down. Women sent cables, made dead drops, and maintained the agency’s secrets. Despite discrimination—even because of it—women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA’s shrewdest operatives.
  
  They were unlikely spies—and that’s exactly what made them perfect for the role. Because women were seen as unimportant, pioneering female intelligence officers moved unnoticed around Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets from under the noses of their KGB adversaries. Back at headquarters, women built the CIA’s critical archives—first by hand, then by computer. And they noticed things that the men at the top didn’t see. As the CIA faced an identity crisis after the Cold War, it was a close-knit network of female analysts who spotted the rising threat of al-Qaeda—though their warnings were repeatedly brushed aside.
  
  After the 9/11 attacks, more women joined the agency as a new job, targeter, came to prominence. They showed that data analysis would be crucial to the post-9/11 national security landscape—an effort that culminated spectacularly in the CIA’s successful effort to track down bin Laden in his Pakistani compound.
  
  Propelled by the same meticulous reporting and vivid storytelling that infused Code Girls, The Sisterhood offers a riveting new perspective on history, revealing how women at the CIA ushered in the modern intelligence age, and how their silencing made the world more dangerous.

  About the Author
  

  .Liza Mundy is an award-winning journalist and the New York Times bestselling author of four books, including Code Girls. A former staff writer for The Washington Post, Mundy writes for The Atlantic, Politico, and Smithsonian Magazine, among other publications. 

  
  

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• Book Club - Russia's World Order: How Civilizationism Explains the Conflict with the West by Paul Robinson

  • When
    11 Jun 2026
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn Rd., Hilton Head Island
  • Spaces left
    30

  Registration is closed

  Note:   Registration opens one month in advance.

  

  ABSTRACT
  

  Russia's World Order explores the ideas underlying the undeclared New Cold War between Russia and the West. The first Cold War was a struggle between capitalism and communism; most Western politicians and policymakers imagine the new one to be a struggle between democracy and autocracy. Russia's World Order explains that in Russian eyes, the conflict is about something very different: it is a fight between two incompatible visions of where history is leading.
  

  Russia's World Order describes the civilizational theory that has come to dominate Russian official discourse, and that has come to dominate Russian official discourse and that is being used by the Russian state to justify its clashes with the West. Whereas the West promotes a vision of history that drives all nations toward convergence on a single social, political, and economic model (that of modern Western liberalism), Russia's political leaders increasingly portray the world as consisting of numerous distinct civilizations, each diverging toward its own unique destination. The Russian state portrays itself as defending the right of all civilizations to chart their own independent path of development and is having some success in using this logic to win allies around the world. 

  Paul Robinson recounts how ideas of inevitable convergence once dominated Russian thought as well but were gradually pushed out by civilizational theories. He outlines where these theories came from, what they propose, and how they became popular. Russia's World Order thereby reveals the true nature of today's New Cold War and the challenge that Russian civilizationism poses to the West.

  About the Author

  Paul Robinson is a Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of numerous works on Russian, Soviet, military, and intellectual history, including Russian Conservatism and Russian Liberalism.

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• Book Club - How Economics Explains the World: A Short History of Humanity by Andrew Leigh

  • When
    09 Jul 2026
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Island Recreation Center, 20 Wilborn Rd., Hilton Head Island
  • Spaces left
    30

  Registration is closed

  Note:   Registration opens one month in advance.

  

  ABSTRACT
  

  In How Economics Explains the World, Harvard-trained economist Andrew Leigh presents a new way to understand the human story. From the dawn of agriculture to AI, here is story of how ingenuity, greed, and desire for betterment have, to an astonishing degree, determined our past, present, and future. 

  This small book indeed tells a big story. It is the story of capitalism – of how our market system developed. It is the story of the discipline of economics, and some of the key figures who formed it. And it is the story of how economic forces have shaped world history. Why didn’t Africa colonize Europe instead of the other way around? What happened when countries erected trade and immigration barriers in the 1930s? Why did the Allies win World War II? Why did inequality in many advanced countries fall during the 1950s and 1960s? How did property rights drive China’s growth surge in the 1980s? How does climate change threaten our future prosperity? You’ll find answers to these questions and more in How Economics Explains the World.

  About the Author
   Andrew Leigh is an Australian economist, author, and politician. He holds a PhD from Harvard, was a professor of economics at the Australian National University, and has been a Member of the Australian Parliament since 2010.  He currently serves as the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury. His publications include Battlers and Billionaires, The Luck of Politics, and Randomistas.  His work has also appeared in journals like the American Economic Review. He is a recipient of the Economic Society of Australia's Young Economist Award and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences. 

  
  

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