Erik Kramer is a senior fellow with the National Center for Urban Operations (NCUO) and a retired U.S. Army Special Forces (and an eastern European Foreign Area Officer) lieutenant colonel where he leads the counter unmanned systems line of effort. He is also the director and cofounder of the Ukraine Defense Support Group (UDSG) located in Kyiv, Ukraine and was in Ukraine since July 2022 training the Armed Forces of Ukraine at every unit level from squad, platoon, and company basic soldier skills and small unit tactics to battalion/brigade planning and operations. He has over 35 years of military and government service as well as five years in the private sector. Previously, he was the Director of Training for The Mozart Group headquartered in Kyiv. He also was the Executive Director of the nonprofit, Special Ops Survivors (SOS), which provided long-term support to U.S. special operations forces Gold Star spouses. Before SOS, he was the CEO for Emerging Technology Institute (ETI) in Red Springs, NC. In that capacity, he started a technology company focusing on unmanned systems, AI, robotics, and electronic warfare that supported the Department of Defense as well as first responders. Prior to ETI, he served with the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG) as the principal strategic planner and advisor to senior U.S. and NATO military leadership and diplomats in Germany, Korea, and Ukraine focusing on emerging Chinese, North Korean, and Russian aggression. He co-authored a U.S. Department of Defense handbook on Russian tactics, techniques, and procedures in Ukraine called the “The Russian New Generation Warfare Handbook” and conducted extensive studies of Russian operations in the Donbas during 2017. Erik was a consultant at the firm, Booz, Allen, Hamilton as well, focusing on emerging threats and the application of advanced technologies. Other assignments of note include as a professor of Military Science at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina and with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). He retired in 2014 after 26 years of commissioned and enlisted service. His final military assignment was at the Pentagon, in the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations & Low Intensity Conflict (ASD SOLIC). As a Special Forces officer, he served in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Iraq, and Kosovo at various levels of command from detachment command to battalion level equivalent. He has written extensively about contemporary national security issues. He just published his first book, “American Dystopia-a cautionary tale.” Through a series of fictitious interviews with a cross section of Americans, the book shows what the U.S. would look like two years after a collapse and how its demise would affect every aspect of life to include culture, the economy, education, international relations, politics, and science. Erik is a 1990 graduate of The Citadel with a degree in Political Science; a 2001 graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School with a degree in Eurasian Studies; and he is a PHD candidate with King’s College London in the Defence Studies department. His dissertation focuses on the convergence of rapidly developing technologies with a focus on AI and unmanned systems and their effects on modern warfare. He resides in Charleston, South Carolina.