|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Christopher Holshek, Senior Associate
|
Christopher Holshek, Colonel (Retired), U.S. Army (Reserve) Civil Affairs, is a Senior Associate at the Project on National Security Reform graduated and received his commission at New Mexico Military Institute on 16 May 1980. After his retirement from the Army, he took a 8000 mile tour of the country on his Harley-Davidson and created a blog, Two Wheels and Two Questions, where he reflected on America's place in the world and experiences from his career. Following his first assignment as a cavalry officer with the Maryland Army National Guard, he served an active duty tour with the Second Armored Cavalry Regiment, helping to safeguard the inner-German border. Inspired by his work as Regimental Civil-Military Operations and Public Affairs Officer, he went on to become one of the Army’s premier Civil Affairs officers, contributing more than a quarter century in extensive civil-military operations at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels in joint, interagency, and multinational settings across the full spectrum of operations, among them command of the first CA battalion to deploy to Iraq in support of Army, Marine and British forces, as a KFOR CIMIC Liaison Officer to the UN Interim Mission in Kosovo, and in the planning and deployment of CA forces to the Balkans. He spent more than 20 years overseas on three continents, most recently as Senior U.S. Military Observer and Chief of Civil-Military Coordination (CIMIC) in the United Nations Mission in Liberia, where he broke new ground in applying concepts for CIMIC for the development of UN civil-military policy. His final tour of duty is as Military Representative for the U.S. European Command at the Office of Military Affairs of the U.S. Agency for International Development, helping to link security and development at the national strategic level. He retired from military service on 15 May 2010. Over the years, he has had significant input to the development of NATO CIMIC doctrine, U.S. Army Civil Affairs doctrine, Joint Civil-Military Operations doctrine, Joint Stability Operations and other U.S. Joint doctrines, and United Nations civil-military coordination policy and doctrine. Effectively fusing his parallel civilian and military careers and a rare American who has served in United Nations multinational peace operations in both civilian and military capacities, this citizen-soldier has also served as an international relations analyst for the U.S. Army, Europe at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and Desert Storm, with the UN as a logistics officer with the UN Transitional Administration in Eastern Slavonia, as well as with the UN Mission in Kosovo as Political Reporting Officer. In more recent years, he has been a consultant associated with DynCorps International, Creative Associates, and the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Civil-Military Relations. Among his chief accomplishments, with the NPS-CCMR, has been the development of CIMIC capabilities and programs in a number of NATO Partnership and other Security Assistance countries. Following graduation from NMMI, he earned two Bachelor’s degrees at the George Washington University, majoring in International Affairs, German Language and Literature, and History. He obtained a Master of Arts International Relations from Boston University in 1990 and a Master of Science in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College in 2006.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
