Geostrategy

Alix Frangeul-Alves is a program assistant in GMF’s Paris office. Her areas of interest and research include US domestic politics and foreign policy, and EU developments in energy, defense, and cybersecurity. Her responsibilities include event planning, program coordination, and office management.

Prior to joining GMF, Frangeul-Alves was an intern at the Paris office. She holds a master’s degree from the French Institute of Geopolitics, where she specialized in security and defense, international relations, and diplomacy. Her second-year master’s thesis focused on the (geo)political and geoeconomic impacts of the American liquefied natural gas industry in the US and Europe. She holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign languages applied to economics and law from the Sorbonne-Nouvelle University, and speaks English, French, Italian, and Portuguese.

Ambassador Brent Hardt is a resident senior fellow at GMF who brings 35 years of experience leading at all levels of government. He has guided five embassies as ambassador, chargé d’affaires, and deputy chief of mission, and served as foreign policy advisor to US Central Command and US Special Operations Command, working closely with allies to meet vital security challenges. As professor and senior advisor at the US Naval War College, he taught national security strategy and policy and developed a seminar on the evolution of modern Europe.

Hardt joined the US Foreign Service in 1988, serving in Berlin, the Hague, Rome, Paris, Canada, and the Caribbean. He was an exchange diplomat with the Netherlands Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense in 1993. In Washington, he served as Team Leader for NATO Policy in the State Department’s Office of European Political and Security Affairs, where he was responsible for NATO enlargement, NATO-Ukraine, and European Security and Defense policy issues.

Over the course of his career, Hardt has received multiple Senior Performance Awards, the Director General's Award for Reporting, five Superior Honor Awards, and three Meritorious Honor Awards. He also received the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the US Special Operations Command Distinguished Civilian Service Award. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University and a master’s in law and diplomacy and a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.