27 DEC 2023 · John "Dragon" Teichert retired as the Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force, International Affairs, responsible for worldwide international engagement on behalf of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force while leading the services’ entire $240 billion security cooperation portfolio. Prior to that, John was the Senior Defense Official and Defense Attaché to Iraq, leading on the front lines of whole-of-government national security strategy and policy in the most challenging of environments. He has been an F-15E combat pilot, an F-22 test pilot, the commander of Joint Base Andrews (also known as America’s Airfield), and the commander of Edwards Air Force Base (also known as the Center of the Aerospace Testing Universe).John has written and spoken extensively on leadership, innovation, technology, national security, security cooperation, cross-cultural relationships, risk management, resilience, and international affairs. He maintains a robust schedule of international-level media engagements including: The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report, PBS, War on the Rocks, Time Magazine, Fox News, Newsmax, Scripps News, Die Welt, Ukrainian TV, Victory News, and Voice of America. He holds engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, and is the founder and president of Capital Leadership LLC, passionately developing the leaders our nation needs.