A. Wess Mitchell

Aaron Wess Mitchell is a sixth generation Texan who was born in Lubbock, Texas in 1977. He received his B.A. in history from Texas Tech University. He received his M.A. in German and European studies from the BMW Center for German and European Studies at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. While studying there, he was awarded the 2004 Hopper Award. He received his DPhil in Political Science from the Otto-Suhr-Institut für Politikwissenschaft from the Freie Universität Berlin.[3][4]

Mitchell co-founded the Center for European Policy Analysis in 2005 at the age of twenty-eight. CEPA is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy research institute that studies Central and Eastern Europe. Before co-founding CEPA, Mitchell was a research associate at the National Center for Policy Analysis. At CEPA, the bulk of Mitchell's reports and articles advanced the argument that the United States should increase its diplomatic and military engagement with allies in Central and Eastern Europe and East Asia that could otherwise fall under Russian or Chinese influence.[5][6][7] Mitchell was among the earliest proponents of placing U.S. and NATO military personnel in Poland and the Baltic States in the aftermath of the 2008 Russo-Georgia War.[8] He was a critic of the Obama Administration's U.S.-Russia Reset.[9] In November 2008 he wrote that "Moscow could precipitate a major crisis in Ukraine within [the Obama administration’s] first two years in office."[8] In 2009 he wrote: "Signs of [U.S.] retreat... discourag[e] regional democrats and embolden Moscow to push its luck elsewhere, particularly in Ukraine."[9] Mitchell was an early proponent of using deterrence-by-denial to defend vulnerable U.S. allies like Estonia or Taiwan from Russian or Chinese attack.[10][11][12][13][14][15] Where deterrence-by-punishment seeks to dissuade aggression by threatening retaliation against the attacker, deterrence-by-denial seeks to dissuade aggression by making the object of attack itself more resistant to attack.[10]

In his historical writing, Mitchell has focused mainly on the Habsburg Empire.[16] In his 2018 book The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire, Mitchell argued that Austria successfully managed over-extended frontiers against numerous stronger rivals by employing strategies of time-management that allowed it to sequence military contests and avoid contests of strength beyond its ability to bear.[17] An article in The Wall Street Journal about the Habsburg Empire that Mitchell co-authored with Purdue University historian Charles Ingrao received the Stanton Prize for using applied history to illuminate contemporary challenges.[18]

In 2012, Mitchell was an adviser to the national security transition team for the Mitt Romney presidential campaign.[3]

Mitchell is the author of three books, The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire (Princeton University Press, 2018), The Unquiet Frontier: Vulnerable Allies, Rising Rivals and the Crisis of American Power with Jakub J. Grygiel (Princeton University Press, 2016) and The Godfather Doctrine: A Foreign Policy Parable with John Hulsman (Princeton University Press, 2009).

Mitchell and Grygiel's 2016 book Unquiet Frontier has been cited as having had a significant influence on National Security Advisor General H.R. McMaster's formulation of the 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy and the shift of emphasis in U.S. foreign policy to great-power competition.[19][20][21][22][23] The book argues that rising and revisionist powers, Russia and China, are "probing" the periphery of the U.S.-led international order by placing pressure on U.S. allies, and that the United States should strengthen its alliances as a way of achieving strategic stability.

As Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, Mitchell was responsible for diplomatic relations with the 50 countries of Europe and Eurasia, as well as the institutions of NATO, the EU, and OSCE. He was seen as an advocate for strengthening NATO,[23][24] for providing military assistance to Ukraine and Georgia,[25][26] and for stepping up U.S. efforts to counter Russia and China.[27][28] In August 2018 testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Mitchell stated:

"Russia and China are serious competitors that are building up the material and ideological wherewithal to contest U.S. primacy and leadership in the 21st Century. It continues to be among the foremost national security interests of the United States to prevent the domination of the Eurasian landmass by hostile powers."[29][30][31][32]

Mitchell was seen as an architect of State Department efforts to increase U.S. engagement with states in East-Central Europe, the Caucasus, and Western Balkans as a means of countering Russian and Chinese geopolitical influence.[25][33][34][35] Mitchell was also seen as a driver of greater U.S. involvement in the Eastern Mediterranean, including through the deepening of U.S. ties with Greece, Cyprus and Israel.[36][37][38][39][40]

He played a role in the resolution of the Greece-North Macedonia name dispute that created the possibility for North Macedonia to join NATO.[41][42]

In a January 4, 2019 letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Mitchell stated personal and professional reasons for his decision to resign from his post. In an interview, he said he had not taken this decision in a protest at the Trump administration's policies. Mitchell's resignation, which became publicly known on January 22, became effective in February 2019.[2]

Mitchell currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Center for European Policy Analysis, as Senior Advisor at the Office of Strategic Stability and Security at the United States Institute of Peace, as a Non-Resident Fellow in the Applied History Project at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and as a member of the international advisory board for Cambridge University's Centre for Geopolitics.[43][44][45][46] He previously served as a Chair of the Europe Group for the John Hay Initiative, and as a member of the advisory councils of the Richard G. Lugar Institute for Diplomacy and Congress, the Slovak Atlantic Commission, the Prague Center for Transatlantic Relations, the Atlantic Initiative, and the Alexander Hamilton Society.[3]

On March 31, 2020, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg appointed Mitchell co-chair of NATO's high-level Reflection Group, a commission of senior experts tasked with providing recommendations to the Secretary General for strengthening the political cohesion and decision-making of the Alliance.[47] The Reflection Group submitted the final report to the Secretary General on November 25, 2020.[48]

He lives in Virginia with his wife and two children. He speaks German.

• The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire. Princeton University Press. 2018. ISBN 978-0691176703
• Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power. Princeton University Press. 2016. ISBN 978-0691178264
• The Godfather Doctrine. Princeton University Press. 2006. ISBN 978-0691141473
• NATO 2030: United for a New Era: Analysis and Recommendations of the Reflection Group Appointed by the NATO Secretary General (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)[49]
• ‘The Habsburgs: To Rule the World’ Review: An Ideal Empire (The Wall Street Journal)[50]
• Containing China Will Be Complicated (The Wall Street Journal)[51]
• Central Europe's China Reckoning (The American Interest)[52]
• Emperor Joseph's Solution to Coronavirus (The Wall Street Journal)[53]
• COVID-19 is a chance for the U.S. and Europe to unite on China (The Washington Post)[54]
• Conservatives and Geopolitical Change (National Review)[55]
• The Age of Great-Power Competition (Foreign Affairs)[56]
• The Middle East In An Era Of Great Power Competition (Hoover)[57]
• Rethinking Metternich (Standpoint)[58]
• Predators on the Frontier (The American Interest)
• Frontline Allies: War and Change in Central Europe (Center for European Policy Analysis)
• A Deterrence-by-Denial Strategy for the Baltic (Center for European Policy Analysis)
• Rebuilding America's Alliances: Europe (John Hay Initiative)
• The Case for Deterrence by Denial (The American Interest)
• A Preclusive Strategy to Defend the NATO Frontier (The American Interest)
• Salami Slicing and Deterrence (The American Interest)
• Limited War is Back (The National Interest)
• Central European Security After Crimea (Center for European Policy Analysis)
• Atlanticism in Retreat (The American Interest)
• America Needs its Frontline Allies Now More Than Ever (The Wall Street Journal)
• Europe's Last Dictator (The Washington Post)
• The Vulnerability of Peripheries (The American Interest)
• Hingepoint Allies: Bolstering U.S. Alliance with Exposed States in Central Europe, East Asia and the Middle East (Center for European Policy Analysis)
• Keeping New Allies: An Assessment of U.S. Policy in Central Europe (Center for European Policy Analysis)
• Growing U.S.-Central European Ties (International Herald Tribune)
• American ‘Decline’ Tested on Periphery First (Realclearworld)
• The Perils of Losing Mitteleuropa (Realclearworld)
• How Central Europe Is Reshaping Global Politics (Der Spiegel)
• Small Powers In Multipolarity: The Case of Central Europe (American Political Science Association)
• Perhapsburg: What the EU Is and Isn't (The American Interest)
• Obamas Hausaufgaben (Internationale Politik)
• Gut gebrüllt, Maus! Wie Kleine Mächte ihr Gewicht in die Waagschale Werfen Können (Internationale Politik)
• Empire by Devolution: What the EU Can Learn from the Empire of Franz Joseph I (Orbis)
• Kaiser, König, Kommission: Alles Schon Mal Dagewesen: Was die EU von Habsburg Lernen Kann (Internationale Politik)
• Mending Fences: Repairing U.S.-Central European Relations after Iraq (Center for European Policy Analysis)
• Tipping the Scales: Why Central Europe Matters to the United States (Center for European Policy Analysis)

• Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit, Republic of Poland[59]
• Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit, Hungary[60]
• Gold Medal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Slovak Republic[61]
• Hopper Award, Center for German and European Studies, Georgetown University[62]
• Distinguished Alumni Award, Texas Tech University[63]
• Stanton Prize for Applied History, Stanton Foundation[18]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to A. Wess Mitchell.

• Biography at the Center for European Policy Analysis