Master Strategist Planned Counter-Insurgency Operations 

WHITE PLAINS, NY– The master strategist who planned and directed all U.S. Army Special Forces operations in Iraq will discuss the war from a strategic perspective at Pace Law School on Wednesday, October 5 at 7 p.m.

Major James A. Gavrilis, a U.S. Army Special Forces career officer, master strategist and International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, will be the guest speaker at the public policy series co-hosted by Pace Law School and the Westchester County Business Journal.

The title of his lecture is “Understanding the War in Iraq: A Theater-Strategic Perspective.” It will take place at the Judicial Training Institute on the Law School campus, 78 North Broadway in White Plains.

The series, which is free and open to the public, features nationally renowned speakers and provides a forum for area residents on both sides of the political aisle to hear contemporaries on subjects ranging from the war in Iraq to government entitlements and homeland security.

Major Gavrilis recently returned from his last tour in Iraq, where he planned and executed multinational and multi-agency counter-terrorist and counter-insurgency operations and commanded special forces operations across Iraq. He served there from the initiation of hostilities to major combat operations to the civil administration that followed.

A veteran of many hostilities, Major Gavrilis has commanded the 3^rd and 5^th Special Forces Groups (Airborne) in the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. He served in Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East, specializing in training, peacekeeping and combat operations.

An associate at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, he earned a BA in political science at Pennsylvania State University and an MA in international studies at Old Dominion University. He is a resident graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, where he earned master strategist and joint planner designations.

Founded in 1976, Pace Law School is a New York Law School with a suburban campus in White Plains, N.Y., twenty miles north of New York City. Part of Pace University, the school offers the JD program for full-time and part-time day and evening students. Its postgraduate program includes the LLM and SJD degrees in Environmental Law and an LLM in Comparative Legal Studies. Pace has one of the nation's top-rated Environmental Law programs and its Clinical Education program also is nationally ranked, offering clinics in domestic violence prosecution, environmental law, securities arbitration, criminal justice, and disability rights. www.law.pace.edu 

Pace is a comprehensive, independent university with campuses in New York City, Pleasantville and White Plains, N.Y., and a Hudson Valley Center at Stewart International Airport in New Windsor, N.Y. More than 14,000 students are enrolled in undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs in the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Lubin School of Business, School of Computer Science and Information Systems, School of Education, Lienhard School of Nursing and Pace Law School. www.pace.edu