Jason Criss Howk, on how to help Afghanistan, be a bridge for cultural dialogue, and be a life-long learner

Jason Criss Howk has spent over 30 years in the national security arena in defense, diplomacy, and intelligence roles. He educates, writes, and speaks about Afghanistan, Interfaith issues, Islam, and other foreign policy and national security topics.  He holds a Master’s degree in Middle Eastern and South-Asian studies, was a term-member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a Malone Fellow in Arab and Islamic Studies.  He also studied Afghan Farsi (Dari) and Arabic, and has published numerous works on the Broader Middle East and Islam. Jason is currently a national security and career advice columnist at Clearance Jobs News and a professor of Islamic and Afghan studies at the Air Force Special Operations School. He has bylines in over two dozen journals and magazines and regularly appears on news outlets to discuss Afghanistan.   Jason has worked on Afghanistan since 2002 assisting the most senior Generals, Ambassadors, and policy-makers in building the Afghan National Army; developing the International Security Sector Reform (SSR) program in Kabul; conducting the U.S. and NATO strategic assessment of the Afghan War in 2009; helping the Afghan government create an Afghan Peace, Reintegration, and Reconciliation policy; and also leading two teams that monitored Afghanistan and Pakistan issues for senior Defense and Joint Staff leaders and the National Security Staff at the White House. He continues to monitor Afghanistan and advise various entities on conflict resolution and security prospects. In his spare time Jason works on conflict resolution and tolerance building as an interfaith leader. In 2017 he published an award-winning chronological modern-English interpretation of the Qur’an.