Walter L. Christman is a pioneer in the global adoption of new cooperative ventures in international collaboration to enable enhanced regional and global security. He is the principal architect of seven Secretary of Defense initiatives, three of which were endorsed by a President of the United States.

Dr. Christman is President of Global Strategic Analysis, LLC, a forward-thinking professional services firm headquartered in San Luis Obispo, California offering confidential analytic support and creative services to world-wide clients who seek to foster innovative solutions for a secure and sustainable world. Its subsidiary, the LEADS Institute (Leadership Education and Analysis for Development and Security) promotes innovative learning and leader development.

Dr. Christman is well established in promoting enhanced US-China relations. He is also President of the Burlingame Foundation is an IRS approved 501 C-3 non-profit corporation established in California. It commemorates the life and work of 19th Century statesmen Anson Burlingame as a means of fostering a collaborative network of educational institutions between the United States, China and other nations throughout the world to inspire mutual trust, respect and collaboration in addressing the challenges of the 21st Century.

Dr. Christman is Chairman, Co-Founder and CEO of the Global Challenges Forum Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, an organization of think tanks, research centers, and academic institutions contributing to the much-needed resolution of existing and future global security challenges. He guides its work through offices in: Geneva, Switzerland; Amman, Jordan; Bangalore, India; and San Luis Obispo, California. He recently launched the Global Knowledge Networking Initiative in collaboration with the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) to foster innovation in next-generation leadership development.

Dr. Christman’s thirty-year career with the US Government spanned service in the Armed Forces, the US Congress, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House, with travel to more than fifty countries, and more than ten years of service as a US diplomat in the international community of Geneva, Switzerland. His academic career includes service as Associate Professor of Global Public Policy with the Naval Postgraduate School; Visiting Distinguished Research Fellow at the National Defense University; Adjunct Faculty of the Joint Special Operations University; Affiliated Faculty of the C4I and Cyber Center at George Mason University; Senior Fellow at Middlebury Institute of International Studies; and Visiting Scholar at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.

Dr. Christman has overseen strategic collaboration efforts in support of the Office of the Secretary Defense and the U.S. Joint Forces Command in collaboration with the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and through bilateral agreements with Partner nations in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He was principal architect and negotiator for multiple Secretary of Defense MOUs with foreign partners. He was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service for his leadership in conceiving and establishing the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany. He was also principal architect of NATO’s Partnership Training policies.

Dr. Christman holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Geneva, a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University, a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University. Prior to university, he served for four years on active duty in the US Army Special Forces on an A-Team trained in the delivery of man-portable nuclear weapons. He is Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces qualified, and awarded a medal for heroism for risking his life to save others during peacetime training incident. He was later a Commissioned Officer in the Army Reserve and is the 2017 Inductee into the Army ROTC Hall of Fame from Duke University.

His professional associations have included the Council on Foreign Relations, Trustee of the Marshall Foundation, the Editorial Board of the journal, “European Security,” and has a forthcoming book entitled “Global Resilience Networking.”