The George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies Senior Executive Seminar (SES) aims to provide decisionmakers from the United States, Germany, and other Ally and partner countries with a platform to explore practical and actionable solutions to contemporary challenges. The Seminar will address aspects of geopolitics and strategic competition; trends in readiness, recruitment, and retention; emerging and disruptive technologies; the defense industrial base; and developments and challenges to international law and governance. This will encompass political, diplomatic, informational, economic, and military elements. SES will enhance leaders’ ability to navigate the complexities of the current and future security environment, ensuring effective responses to the evolving nature of conflict and strategic disruption. 

• Address emerging and future trends in the character and conduct of war.
• Assess the strategic challenges and opportunities of the transatlantic community and its partners.
• Identify areas of commonality and divergence and understand the respective underlying interests.
• Develop concrete and actionable ways to address the current and future challenges to warfare, deepen existing relationships, and forge new partnerships in and for an era of strategic competition.

In 2025, SES will examine the future of war in an era of persistent strategic competition and disruption. International affairs stand at a historic inflection point between a rapidly fading era of relative stability and a volatile, dangerous age of disruption, which is global in nature and broad in scope. The world has entered a period of comprehensive contestation and conflict, pervasive instability, and recurrent shocks. Consideration of the contemporary and emerging nature of war is particularly relevant given ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and between Israel and various state and nonstate actors in the Middle East. It is essential for leaders to anticipate emerging trends, confront assumptions, and create new strategies to navigate future challenges.