Our Next Speaker

Dr. Jack Kangas, Former Professor & Strategic Nuclear Planner

Dr. Jack Kangas. The better part of Dr. Kangas’ career was  spent in the DoD as a strategic nuclear planner and arms  control negotiator in Geneva with SALT under Jimmy Carter and START under George H.W. Bush.  During his time In the Pentagon, he also led study teams on the Political and Military Implications of New Weapons Technologies for the Nuclear Planning Group under NATO and was a participant in the reformulation of our strategic targeting policies during the tenure of James Schlesinger as Sec. of Def.

He also has an academic background, teaching U.S. Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins University for 12 years.  He also taught at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, the University of Helsinki, and most recently at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.  While teaching at Pitt, he was the founder and first director of the Matthew Ridgeway Center for International and Security Affairs.  He was an Air Force Intelligence Officer during the Vietnam War and holds advanced academic degrees from MIT and Stanford University.  

With this extensive background of dealing with Russia for over a half century, he will give his perspective on the U.S., Russia, and the War in the Ukraine.