Alex Wagner

Alex Wagner is a distinguished fellow with the Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative and the GeoStrategy Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. From 2022 to 2025, Wagner served as the Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs—responsible for the entire human capital enterprise of the US Air Force and US Space Force, including recruiting and retention, talent management, compensation, health care and family support, discipline, oversight of the US Air Force Academy and Air Force ROTC detachments, and reserve component affairs for nearly 700,000 service members and civilians. He led initiatives to modernize recruiting, expand quality of life programs, and enhance readiness and resilience, including a childcare strategy that increased staffing from 65% to 86% and reduced waiting lists by 25%.

Previously, Wagner was Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at the Aerospace Industries Association, where he drove industry-wide initiatives on talent, workforce resilience, and STEM education. During the Obama administration, as Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Army, he oversaw operations for a 1.4 million-person, $140 billion organization and helped launch the Army Rapid Capabilities Office, the Army Digital Service, and “Hack the Army”—embedding innovation and emerging technology into a legacy institution. In earlier roles at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Wagner shaped U.S. landmine and cluster munition policy, contributed to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review and New START Treaty negotiations, and helped develop the Defense Department’s first policy framework for autonomy in weapon systems.

He currently teaches at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and was a Fall 2025 Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics. He continues to advocate for military service members and their families as a senior advisor at Hiring Our Heroes and on the National Advisory Board of Blue Star Families.

Wagner has testified multiple times before Congress on military recruiting, personnel policy, and organizational effectiveness. His writing on defense, technology, and civil-military relations has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Hill, and Defense One, among others. He holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and an A.B. from Brown University.