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Expert Bio
Richard Falkenrath is senior fellow for national security at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is head of geopolitics at Bridgewater Associates, where he oversees research on the challenges geopolitical conflict poses to global investors and the sizable influence of government policy on economies and markets. He is also chief security officer, a Bridgewater partner, and a member of the firm’s operating committee. From 2020 to 2022, Falkenrath was chief administrative officer, directing Bridgewater’s operational risk management and administration; managing the firm’s legal, regulatory, security, human resources, and real estate departments; and leading Bridgewater’s handling of the COVID pandemic. He joined Bridgewater in 2014 and, until 2019, served as chief security officer, responsible for all aspects of Bridgewater’s security, including cybersecurity operations, physical security, internal affairs and investigations, business continuity, disaster recovery, intellectual property protection, and noncompete agreement enforcement.
Falkenrath served as the New York City Police Department’s deputy commissioner for counterterrorism from 2006 to 2010. From 2000 to 2004, he was a member of the National Security Council and White House staff, ultimately as deputy assistant to the president and deputy homeland security advisor. Prior to the White House, he was assistant professor at Harvard Kennedy School. He has also been the Stephen and Barbara Friedman senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor to Bloomberg TV.
Outside of Bridgewater, Richard is a member of the Trilateral Commission, the Aspen Strategy Group, and the mission committee of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s board of governors. He is a certified information systems security professional and the author or coauthor of several books. Richard is graduate of Occidental College with degrees in economics and international relations. He received a PhD from the department of war studies at King’s College London, where he was a British Marshall Scholar.
Affiliations:
- Bridgewater Associates, Head of Geopolitics
- Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, Mission Committee of the Board of Governors
- Trilateral Committee, Member
- Aspen Strategy Group, Member
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The Boston Marathon bombings illustrate the stresses on domestic intelligence gathering and counterterrorism in a democratic system, says CFR’s Richard Falkenrath.
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Nuclear talks with Iran are unlikely to lead to a deal in the short term, but they have had some impact: easing tensions and calming oil markets, says CFR’s Richard Falkenrath.
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Which policies have worked and which ones need work ten years after the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history? CFR experts examine ten issues that have preoccupied U.S. planners.
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Terrorism and Counterterrorism
The reemergence of Yemen as a terror risk to the United States underscores the difficulties in combating al-Qaeda in weak states, says CFR’s Richard A. Falkenrath. -
Nine years after 9/11, the United States needs to combat the proliferating threat of Islamist radicalism abroad and anti-Muslim sentiment at home, says CFR’s Richard A. Falkenrath.
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