Sebastian Kwon

Sebastian Kwon is a nonresident fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a research associate on Arcadia Impact’s AI Governance Taskforce. He is a recently retired US Air Force cyberspace effects operations officer with twenty years of active duty military service.

Kwon served the last six years of his military career as an airpower strategist in the Futures and Concepts Division at Headquarters US Air Force, a selectively manned innovation team known as the Air Force Skunk Works. In this role, he led interdisciplinary workshops, executed joint wargames, and engaged with domain experts, stakeholders, senior leaders, sister services, and US allies to develop enterprise-level future operating concepts and strategies for the Department of the Air Force. As the lead author of two operating concepts signed by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Information Warfare (2022) and Adaptive Cyber to Enable Airpower (2024), Kwon shaped and informed future force designs, capability development roadmaps, and investment prioritization for the US Air Force.

Kwon’s military career spanned a variety of operational, technical, and leadership roles in information technology, communications, software development, and defensive cyberspace operations. His Indo-Pacific experience includes an assignment to Headquarters Pacific Air Forces and operational deployments within the region.

Kwon holds an MS in cybersecurity and information assurance from Western Governors University and a BS in computer science and systems engineering from the US Air Force Academy. He also holds certifications in cybersecurity, ethical hacking, and artificial intelligence engineering.