Alexander Vindman on Values, Realism, and U.S. National Security (San Francisco)

Dec 12, 2025

Alexander Vindman, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and national security scholar, delves into the complexities of U.S.-Russia relations and the delicate balance between values and geopolitics. He critiques past U.S. foreign policy for fostering Russian aggression and discusses the importance of prioritizing democratic values over transactionalism. Vindman assesses the current military dynamics in Ukraine, warns against U.S. troop withdrawals, and evaluates leadership under President Zelensky, while framing the global struggle as one between democracy and authoritarianism.

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INSIGHT

Alliances, Not Transactions

U.S. national security rests on long-term alliances and shared prosperity, not short-term transactions.
Treating relationships as transactions risks ceding strategic leverage to rivals, Alexander Vindman warns.

ANECDOTE

Leaving Uniform For Advocacy

Vindman left the Army when promotions stalled and he feared being sidelined under the Trump administration.
He immediately continued public service through writing and advocacy with VoteVets and think tanks.

INSIGHT

The Cost Of Gracious Victory

Post-Cold War U.S. policy treated Russia as exceptional and often offered concessions without sufficient conditions.
That gracious victor stance allowed Russia to exploit gaps and pursue imperial ambitions, Vindman argues.

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How can the United States advance its interests without abandoning its core values? Alexander Vindman, retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and former director for European Affairs on the White House’s National Security Council, presents a discussion on the critical interplay between morality, values and power in the practice of geopolitics and national security.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, six U.S. presidential administrations across both parties crafted policies for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia that unintentionally emboldened Russia and played into its imperialist, centuries-long mythos of regional hegemony, by pursuing short-term transactional policies. The result: military aggression and full-scale invasion. It was all too foreseeable.

Vindman will discuss the shifting U.S. foreign policy landscape, what a just peace and lasting end to the war in Ukraine might look like, the administration's increasingly transactional approach to international relations, and Trump's heavy-handed approach to national security and domestic politics.

About the Speaker

Dr. Alexander Vindman, a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel, was the director for European Affairs on the National Security Council. Before that, he served as the political-military affairs officer for Russia for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as an attaché at the U.S. Embassies in Moscow and Kyiv. While on the Joint Staff, he authored the National Military Strategy for Russia. He earned a Master's from Harvard University, where he served as a Hauser Leader, and a Master's and Doctorate from Johns Hopkins, where he is a senior fellow. Dr. Vindman leads the national security think tank Institute for Informed American Leadership, is the president of the nonprofit Here Right Matters Foundation, an executive board member for the Renew Democracy Initiative, a senior fellow at the Kettering Foundation, and a senior advisor to VoteVets. Dr. Vindman is the author of the "Why It Matters" Substack and the New York Times bestselling books Here, Right Matters and The Folly of Realism.

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