CHRISTOPHER HOLSHEK
Christopher Holshek, Col. (Ret.), U.S. Army Civil Affairs, is Civil-Military Director at Narrative Strategies, with a lifetime of creating and applying civil-military narrative strategies following dual related workstreams at global and local levels.
The first draws from over three decades of civil-military conflict experience in multiple settings across the full range of operations, as well as contributions to U.S. Army, Joint, NATO, United Nations civil-military and peace and stability operations policy and doctrine, and dozens of publications and book chapters on related issues. For the Civil Affairs Association, he created and implemented collaborative Civil Affairs force and professional development platforms with interagency and international partners. This includes editing more than a decade of Civil Affairs Issue Papers. Inspired by Narrative Strategies’ Dr. Ajit Maan, he led an initiative to articulate a narrative strategy to “tell the Civil Affairs story” for military and interagency leaders to understand, leverage, and integrate this diverse and little-known strategic land force to end and prevent wars and win without fighting.
A rare American with UN field mission service in civilian and military capacities, he has contributed to the original UN civil-military policy and to UN humanitarian civil-military coordination standards. Since his miliary retirement in 2010, he has authored the Peace Operations Training Institute’s course on Civil-Military Coordination in Peace Operations that fosters a universal narrative for the civil-military management of conflict and peace.
The second, closer to his home in New York’s Hudson Valley, is his civic work based on Travels with Harley – Journeys in Search of Personal and National Identity. As founder of the National Service Ride project and a leading member of the American Legion there, his initiatives include a veteran-led effort with local schools to integrate service-learning curriculum strategies that mobilize youth to serve their country through their communities, fostering an empowering and unifying narrative of citizenship, service, and social responsibility that helps pass the generational baton of leadership and move a divided nation forward. With the Hudson Valley Honor Flight, he introduced “youth guardians” on Honor Flights so young people could better appreciate the meaning and value of patriotism and service by learning these veterans’ stories at a personal level.
In 2017 the U.S. Army Special Operations Command inducted him as a Distinguished Member of the Civil Affairs Regiment; in 2021, the NATO CIMIC Centre of Excellence presented him its Award of Excellence; and, in 2023, the New York State Senate inducted him into its Veterans Hall of Fame.