Gainful Solutions (www.gainfulsolutions.com), an international consulting and lobbying firm, and it’s Managing Partners, former Ambassador Michael Ranneberger and Mr. Soheil Nazari-Kangarlou, and its Partner Mr. Stephen Hayes, are honored to welcome Dr. Isaiah “Ike” Wilson III as a Partner. He has earned a reputation as a versatile and innovative soldier-scholar, and joins a strong team, some of whom he has worked with previously.
A decorated combat veteran (Colonel, U.S. Army, retired) with combat tours in the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Wilson has become a leading advocate for change in America’s concepts of and approaches to security policy, war, and peace. His military career spanned troop-leading, staff-planning, strategic advisory and teaching assignments, and he has published extensively on organizational politics, civil-military relations, national security (defense) policy, and grand strategy. His 2007 book, Thinking beyond War: Civil-Military Relations and Why America Fails to Win the Peace, helped to increase public attention to the problems and errors in U.S. post-war planning for the Iraq War and sparked governmental movement toward policy reforms. He has been at the center of innovative planning in the future of U.S. intervention policy.
His most recent military assignment was serving as chief, commander’s initiatives group (CIG) for the Commanding General, Lloyd Austin, of the United States Central Command (2013-2016). Previously, Colonel Wilson served as a strategic planning advisor to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, CO in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF) in 2009.
Dr. Wilson holds a B.S. in International Relations from the United States Military Academy at West Point, master’s degrees in Public Policy and Government from Cornell University, master’s degrees in Military Arts and Sciences from the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College, School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), and the National War College, as well as a Ph.D. in political science from Cornell University.
Dr. Wilson was President of the Joint Special Operations University (JSOU), 2020 to 2023, where he held responsibilities of principle advisor to the Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, on all matters pertaining to Special Forces education, and leader preparation and development for the over 70,000 U.S. special operations force, allied and foreign partner special operations forces.
Among other distinguished positions, he has served as a senior lecturer with the Yale Jackson Institute of Global Affairs at Yale University and as professor of political science and the Director of the American Politics, Policy, and Strategy Program at West Point from 2005 to 2013, where he was the architect and founding director of the West Point Grand Strategy Program. Dr. Wilson is a life member with the Council on Foreign Relations.
