U.S. President Donald Trump has named USAF Colonel Kris A. Bauman to become the new Israel advisor on the National Security Council, according to a report published by Ha’aretz, unconfirmed anywhere else thus far. Bauman himself could not be reached for confirmation by JewishPress.com.
President Trump himself is expected arrive in Israel on May 22, his visit to Jerusalem sandwiched between his first stop in Riyadh, and preceding his flight to the Vatican, where he will meet Pope Francis. Trump told reporters on Thursday, “My first foreign trip as president of the United States will be to Saudi Arabia, then Israel, and then to a place that my cardinals love very much, Rome.” A White House statement added that the visit to Israel was aimed at “further strengthen(ing) the United States-Israel partnership.”
Bauman is joining a National Security Council in which military officers, led by U.S. National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster, hold a number of senior positions.
Bauman is replacing Yael Lempert in the post, which addresses the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
According to his biography with the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University, Bauman served as Chief of Staff for the Senior Advisor to Defense Secretary General John R. Allen, USMC, retired. Allen’s team was responsible for the security portfolio of a proposed two-state agreement during 2013-2014 talks brokered by then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
Last year, Bauman published a document together with Ilan Goldenberg on the site of the Autumn 2016 Fathom Symposium, entitled ‘A security system for the two-state solution.’
The document is, essentially, a nuts-and-bolts blueprint for the vision of then-Secretary of State John Kerry and former President Barack Obama for what the two-state solution and its security apparatus should actually look like, and how it should operate, between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It now remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will attempt to adapt that plan, or scrap it and begin afresh with something a bit more realistic.
Bauman currently serves as a Senior Military Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Studies and as an adjunct instructor at the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, both at the National Defense University in Washington DC.
He was deployed to Iraq to work in intelligence from 2011-2012, which followed a stint at Air Command and Staff College, where he specialized in joint warfare. His focus regions are Israel, ‘Palestine’ and Iraq, with special interest in international security, Middle East peace negotiations, U.S. foreign policy, strategic leader development, organizational transformation and adult education.
Bauman has a PhD in International Studies from the University of Denver, in addition to a Master of Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma, and a Master of Military Operational Art and Science from Air Command and Staff College. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado.