A. Wess Mitchell

A. Wess Mitchell is a principal and co-founder at The Marathon Initiative, a think tank dedicated to the study of great power competition. From 2017 and 2019 he served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. In this role, he 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 played a principal role in formulating Europe strategy in support of the 2017 National Security Strategy and 2018 National Defense Strategy.

Mitchell is the author of four books, including Great Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger (Princeton Press, 2025), The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire (Princeton Press, 2018), Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies and the Crisis of American Power (Princeton Press, 2016 – co-authored with Jakub Grygiel), and The Godfather Doctrine (Princeton Press, 2019 – co-authored with John C. Hulsman) He is a frequent commentator on national security and geopolitics whose articles and interviews have appeared in major publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, National Interest, and National Review.

Prior to the State Department, Mitchell served as President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), which he co-founded in 2005. In 2020, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg appointed Mitchell to co-chair, with former German Minister of Defense Thomas de Maizière, the NATO 2030 Reflection Group, a ten-member consultative body charged with providing recommendations on the future of NATO.

Mitchell is a Non-Resident Fellow in the Applied History Project at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center, a member of the International Security and Foreign Policy Grants Advisory Committee at the Smith Richardson Foundation, a member of the International Advisory Council at Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics, and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mitchell holds a doctorate in political science from the Otto Suhr Institut für Politikwissenschaft at Freie Universität in Berlin, a master’s degree in German and European Studies from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and a bachelor’s degree in history from Texas Tech University. He received a 2020 prize from the Stanton Foundation for writing in Applied History (with Charles Ingrao) and the 2004 Hopper Award at Georgetown University. He is the recipient of the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Hungary, and the Gold Medal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic. He is a sixth-generation Texan.