Ideas at the edges

Event Details

For the first time since the Cold War, three shadows are converging at once: a rising nuclear rivalry, great powers once again circling one another, and a terrorism threat that never truly disappeared.

Few people understand that collision better than Christine Wormuth, the former Secretary of the Army who led the world’s largest army.

Join Christine Wormuth for an exclusive conversation exploring:

• Why nuclear history matters.
• Where the rivalry with China and Russia is headed.
• How the terrorism threat has evolved.
• How the leaders confronting it actually think and decide.

For most of our lives, the nuclear question felt settled. The Berlin Wall fell, arsenals shrank, and the fear that defined the Cold War quietly faded into the background.
That era is over.

Today, the United States faces the first genuine three-way nuclear rivalry in history, as Russia and a rapidly expanding China reshape the global balance of power. Arms-control agreements that helped stabilize the world for decades are ending. Russia has openly invoked nuclear threats during the war in Ukraine, and non-state actors are active and threatening. The danger of catastrophic terrorism has not disappeared—it has evolved.

You’ll leave this seminar with a clearer understanding of one of the world’s most consequential strategic challenges, delivered by someone who has genuinely been in the room where history, policy, and national security decisions are made. Christine Wormuth has the ability to think and talk about it with far more confidence than almost anyone in your circle

Christine Wormuth is President and CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and served as the 25th Secretary of the U.S. Army—the first woman to hold that office—where she led more than one million soldiers and civilians through an era of renewed strategic competition.
She previously served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, advised the President on the National Security Council staff, held senior Pentagon leadership positions, and directed defense policy research at the RAND Corporation.

Christine Wormuth is at the center of the defining challenges of our time — nuclear risk, great-power rivalry, and evolving terrorist threats — giving her a rare command of both how these dangers work and how national leaders confront them. She is helping lead the global effort to reduce nuclear, biological, and emerging technology threats, offering audiences an uncommon perspective on one of the defining security challenges of the twenty-first century.