COEUR d'ALENE - Dr. Jack Caravelli has never been to North Idaho, but he is looking forward to visiting when he speaks about national and international challenges at The Coeur d'Alene Resort on Jan. 16 and 17.

Caravelli, of Washington, D.C., said his goal is to have an interactive dialogue with the community about topics that will be on the tongues of politicians and already are on the minds of Americans. During his presentation, titled "Our Nation's Challenges - Strategic Policy and Counter-Terrorism," he will speak about nations such as Russia and China, transnational threats including terrorism and the rise of Islamic-based extremism in Africa and the Middle East, technology and cyber attacks and the implications for United States homeland security, including threats from abroad and at home.

"I think one of the cornerstones of democracy is a well-informed public," Caravelli said Sunday, in a phone interview. "We are in a world where we don't have one threat the way we did when I started my career. It's really multiplied and it's really different now."

Caravelli's impressive resume includes 25 years with the U.S. government, serving as the director for nonproliferation with responsibility for U.S. nonproliferation policy in Russia and the Middle East, serving as the director of the Department of Energy's three international threat reduction programs that worked to prevent nuclear terrorism, writing two books and lecturing at Oxford University.

He has extensively traveled the globe, spending a lot of time in Rome and London, and he currently is one of the managing partners of a cyber security group that provides training and consultancy services on cyber issues.

He said he has a friend in Coeur d'Alene who suggested he come visit and speak to the community, and Caravelli said he is very much looking forward to it.

"The fun part for me is the interaction with the audience," he said. "I enjoy it. When you live in Washington (D.C.) you can go to seminars and round tables every week if you want, but it's the same people talking to the same people."

He said these policies, global issues and cyber threats should be topics the American public is thinking about.

"What I want to do when I'm out there is have a dialogue with those who attend the conference and talk about the different policy challenges," he said. "The recent tragedy in Paris underscores that in the West, we're in a fragile place."

Caravelli is a visiting professor at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. He gives many speaking presentations and has frequently been a guest on radio talk shows and has appeared on the BBC and Fox News. He also served on the White House National Security Council staff as President Bill Clinton's principal adviser on Russian and Middle East security issues.

"Our Nation's Challenges - Strategic Policy and Counter-Terrorism" will be held from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Friday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The one-and-a-half-day event costs $45. It is sponsored by Strategic Synergies, Inc., which has business objectives pertaining to the Aviation Quick Response Force (AQRF) concept and Real-time Actionable Intelligence (RTAI); a worldwide requirement for actionable intelligence, aviation surveillance, homeland-defense and security now addressing Transnational and Domestic terrorism.

To register for the event, visit

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/strategic-policy-and-counter-terrorism-tickets-15062554506.