The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is honored to welcome Former Commander of the United States Army Europe Ben Hodges for a conversation and signing on his new book, Future War and the Defence of Europe. Hodges will be in conversation with Professor of History and Chair of War Studies at the Army War College, Michael Neiberg. This event is in partnership with the Foreign Policy Association of Central Pennsylvania.
Hodges and Neiberg will discuss how peace can be maintained in Europe, as well as the role of history, strategy, policy, and technology play in its future security.
Future War and the Defence of Europe offers a major new analysis of how peace and security can be maintained in Europe: a continent that has suffered two cataclysmic conflicts since 1914. Taking as its starting point the COVID-19 pandemic and way it will inevitably accelerate some key global dynamics already in play, the book goes on to weave history, strategy, policy, and technology into a compelling analytical narrative. It lays out in forensic detail the scale of the challenge Europeans and their allies face if Europe's peace is to be upheld in a transformative century.
The book upends foundational assumptions about how Europe's defence is organised, the role of a fast-changing transatlantic relationship, NATO, the EU, and their constituent nation-states. At the heart of the book is a radical vision of a technology-enabling future European defence, built around a new kind of Atlantic Alliance, an innovative strategic public-private partnership, and the future hyper-electronic European force, E-Force, it must spawn. Europeans should be under no illusion: unless they do far more for their own defence, and very differently, all that they now take for granted could be lost in the maze of hybrid war, cyber war, and hyper war they must face.
About the Authors:
Lieutenant General (Retired) Ben Hodges is the former Commanding General of US Army Europe (2014-2017). He currently serves as NATO Senior Mentor for Logistics. He is also a Distinguished Fellow with GLOBSEC in Slovakia and serves on the International Advisory Board of the New Strategy Center in Romania and the Warsaw Security Forum in Poland. He serves on several civic advocacy Advisory Boards including Renew Democracy Initiative, Atlantik Bruecke, Arthur Burns Fellowship, Razom for Ukraine, Veterans Help Group, and Spirit of America. He consults for several companies on Europe, NATO, and the European Union, and he is co-author of the book, Future War and the Defence of Europe, published by Oxford University Press.
General Hodges has a regular presence on US and international media. He offers insight and analysis on NATO, US and European security, the Russian War against Ukraine, the greater Black Sea and Baltic Sea Regions, the Israel-Hamas war, the upcoming US Election and its implications for Transatlantic Security, human rights, and other related geostrategic topics.
He was most recently Senior Advisor to Human Rights First, a non-profit, nonpartisan international human rights organization based in the United States. Prior to joining Human Rights First, he held the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
After his first assignment as a Lieutenant in Garlstedt, Germany, he commanded Infantry units at the Company, Battalion, and Brigade levels in the 101st Airborne Division, including the First Brigade Combat Team “Bastogne” in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (2003-2004). His other operational assignments include Chief of Operations for Multi-National Corps-Iraq in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (2005-2006) and Director of Operations, Regional Command South in Kandahar, Afghanistan (2009-2010).
General Hodges has also served in a variety of Joint and Army Staff positions, including Chief of Plans for the 2nd Infantry Division in the Republic of Korea, Director of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell on the Joint Staff, and Chief of Army Congressional Liaison. From 2012-2014 he served as Commander, NATO Allied Land Command in İzmir, Turkey. His last military assignment was as Commanding General, United States Army Europe in Wiesbaden, Germany from 2014 to 2017.
He retired from the U.S. Army in January 2018 and lives today with his wife in Frankfurt, Germany.
Michael S. Neiberg is the award-winning author of Potsdam: The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe, Fighting the Great War, and Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I, among other books. He is Professor of History and the inaugural Chair of War Studies at the US Army War College.
