Brigadier General (Ret.) Frédéric Pesme is a Combat Engineer who served for 39 years in the French Army.
He has an extensive background in leadership and military strategy & policy after a professional career that combined both operational and strategic-level responsibilities. His operational experience includes a deployment in Afghanistan and his tenure as Commanding Officer of the 1st Marine Training and Education Battalion in Fort-de-France. At the strategic level, he held key positions in policy and planning, notably within the Joint Staff and the Directorate for Strategic Affairs.
Brigadier General Pesme has been a practitioner of NATO and European Defence for twenty years and his last military assignments include Executive Assistant to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (Norfolk, VA); Deputy-Director Euro-Atlantic Directorate of the French Joint Staff (Paris) and Deputy-Director Policy and Capabilities in the International Military Staff at NATO HQ Brussels. In this last position, he co-chaired various committees related to Science and Technology, Innovation and Artificial Intelligence.
He is a graduate from Saint-Cyr Military Academy, receiving his commission as a second lieutenant in 1985. Brigadier General Pesme is also a 2000 Graduate of the Canadian Forces College Command and Staff Course. He holds a MA in Geopolitics from the University of Paris-Est Marne la Vallée. He has attended the 3rd session of the Diplomatic Institute of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2003 and the High-Level Course of the European Security and Defence College in 2010.
Additionally, he has taught international relations courses at Saint-Cyr Military Academy (2000-2005) and Rennes Political Studies Institute (2003). Brigadier General Pesme has been published in various NATO and European Defence and Security journals in both French and English. He is a member of the Network for Strategic Analysis (Canada).His awards include the French Légion d’Honneur (officer), the Ordre National du Mérite (officer) and the US Meritorious Service Medal.






















