Our Team
Developing Innovative solutions for clients with unique challenges
Our team brings innovative solutions to our clients, drawing on decades of experience with the federal government, Congress and international governments and organizations.
Evelyn N. Farkas, Ph.D.
Founding Partner
Evelyn is President, Farkas Global Strategies, LLC, Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Senior Fellow at CNA, and a National Security Contributor for NBC/MSNBC.
She served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, responsible for policy towards Russia, the Black Sea, Balkans and Caucasus regions and conventional arms control from 2012 to 2015. For over two years prior to that she was Senior Advisor to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Special Advisor to the Secretary of Defense for the NATO Summit. Prior to that, she was a senior fellow at the American Security Project.
Evelyn was Executive Director of the 2008 Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.
For over seven years starting in 2001, she served as a Professional Staff Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee responsible for Asia Pacific, Western Hemisphere, Special Operations Command, stability operations, combatting terrorism, counternarcotics, homeland defense, and export control policy.
For four years Evelyn was a professor of international relations at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College. She served in Bosnia with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1996-1997 and was an election observer in Afghanistan in 2009. She has published numerous journal articles and opinion pieces and “Fractured States and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, Ethiopia, and Bosnia in the 1990s” (Palgrave/St. Martin’s Press, 2003, 2008). She speaks Hungarian and German, has studied French, Spanish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Hindi.
Evelyn obtained her MA and Ph.D. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a member of the board of trustees of Franklin & Marshall College and Aspen Institute Socrates Seminar, and Harold Rosenthal Fellowship advisory boards. She has received several Department of Defense and foreign awards and an honorary doctorate from Franklin & Marshall College.
James Joye Townsend, JR.
Principal
Rebecca Bill Chavez, Ph.D.
Founding Partner
Rebecca is Non-resident Senior Strategic Fellow for Latin America at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Principal Advisor at the Center for Naval Analyses. She served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs from 2013 until 2017.
As senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense on Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada, Rebecca developed and oversaw defense policy involving the countries of the Western Hemisphere. She was active in supporting the Colombian Ministry of Defense role in the peace process, resetting defense relations with Argentina and Brazil, increasing Mexico’s commitment to regional security cooperation, establishing a productive dialogue with Cuba, and shaping Defense Department contributions to President Obama’s Central America Strategy. She expanded defense institution building programs, championed Women, Peace, and Security initiatives, and developed a strategic communications plan for the region.
Prior to her time at the Pentagon, Rebecca was tenured Professor of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Her research and teaching focused on international security, democratization, the rule of law, and Latin American politics. She served on the Admissions Board and the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate.
Raised in Austin, Texas, Rebecca received her doctorate in political science from Stanford University and her bachelor’s degree from the Woodrow Wilson School Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She is the author of The Rule of Law in Nascent Democracies (Stanford University Press) and has published widely in leading journals such as Joint Forces Quarterly and Comparative Politics.
Rebecca is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the recipient of numerous research grants, including a Fulbright Scholarship. She has served as advisor to the Commander of U.S. Southern Command and of U.S. European Command.
Jim Townsend is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where he is the co-host of the podcast “Brussels Sprouts”, a weekly interview program featuring leaders in the transatlantic security community, and writes the weekly transatlantic defense news feature “The Dish”. He is also a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London.
Before going to CNAS in 2017, Jim spent eight years as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for European and NATO Policy. That assignment completed more than 34 years of work primarily on European and NATO policy in the Pentagon, at NATO and at the Atlantic Council. His work spanned the last decade of the Cold War, post-Cold War political reconstruction in Europe and Europe's new challenges including Russia and terrorism. Through his work with Allies, he has helped execute US military engagements in almost every conflict from the Gulf War to the reintroduction of US forces into Europe to deter Russia.
Jim began his career working in Foreign Military Sales at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) as a Country Director for European security assistance and as the assistant to the DSCA Comptroller, where he worked on most of the financial aspects involved in foreign military sales.
Jim has been decorated by 11 European nations and multiple times by the Department of Defense for his work, including a Presidential Rank Award (Meritorious Executive). He also served for 17 years in the U.S. Navy Reserve (intelligence).
Jim earned a B.A. from Duke University and an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).