The Battle for Global Trade Routes: Hormuz, the Red Sea, and Alternative Corridors

Featured Speakers: Ambassador Patrick Theros, Professor David Des Roches, Dr. Dania Arayssi, Robin Mills, and Mohammed Baharoon.

Ambassador Patrick Theros (moderator)

Strategic Advisor and Senior Fellow, Gulf International Forum

Ambassador Patrick Theros is a Strategic Advisor and Senior Fellow at Gulf International Forum. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to the State of Qatar from 1995-1998. Prior to his appointment, he served as Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, responsible for the coordination of all U.S. Government counterterrorism activities outside the United States. From 1991-1993, Ambassador Theros served as the Political Advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of Central Command (CENTCOM).

Ambassador Theros joined the Foreign Service in 1963, and served in a variety of positions in Washington D.C., Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Nicaragua and Syria, including charge d’affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassies in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. In 1999, His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah Al-Thani awarded Ambassador Theros the Qatar Order of Merit for his efforts in service of the U.S.-Qatar bilateral relationship. His commitment to national service also earned him the President’s Meritorious Service Award and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service (1992). Ambassador Theros has also earned four Superior Honor Awards, the highest awards for distinguished service given by the Foreign Service. After his retirement from the Foreign Service Ambassador Theros assumed the office of President of the U.S.-Qatar Business Council in March 2000 until his retirement in 2017.

Ambassador Theros’ personal commitment to community and public service earned him the rank of Knight Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem (1999), as well as the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom (2005). In addition to his duties as President of the U.S.-Qatar Business Council, Ambassador Theros is also active in the following organizations: The Middle East Policy Council, Board of Directors; The Council of Foreign Relations, Member; The Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, Member; and The American Academy of Diplomacy, Member.

Ambassador Theros graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in 1963. He has done advanced studies at the American University in Washington, D.C., the Universidad Centroamericana in Nicaragua, the Armed Forces Staff College at Norfolk, Virginia, and the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He is married to Aspasia (nee Pahigiannis) and has three children. He speaks and reads Spanish, Arabic and Greek professionally.

Professor David Des Roches

Senior Fellow, Gulf International Forum; Professor, Thayer Marshall Institute

David B. Des Roches is a Senior Fellow at Gulf International Forum and a Professor at the Thayer Marshall Institute. From 2011 to 2025, he was Professor of Practice at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) at National Defense University. His academic work focuses on developments in weapons, warfare, and security in Europe and the Middle East, particularly the Gulf. Prior to this, he was a career civil servant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the White House, working as Director of Arabian Peninsula Policy, as the Defense Liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, as the Senior Country Director for Pakistan, as NATO Operations Director, and as Deputy Director for Peacekeeping. In the White House, he was a Special Assistant for Strategy.

He had a full career in the US Army and Army Reserve, where he served in infantry and special operations units as well as on the Joint Staff, to include combat service in Afghanistan. He is a regular commentor on various security and policy issues on Arabic and regional media, including Al Jazeera, Sky News Arabia, and the BBC. He has written extensively on Gulf and Middle Eastern Security, and has lectured at various military and academic colleges in Germany, England, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Canada, and elsewhere.

Mohammed Baharoon

Director General, Dubai Public Policy Research Center (b’huth) 

Mohammed Baharoon is the Director General of the Dubai Public Policy Research Center (b’huth), established in 2002 in Dubai, UAE.

He pursued a career in media as a reporter for “Al Arabi” Magazine and Al Ittihad newspaper, and then as an editor for Gulf Defence Magazine before starting as director of research at b’huth and focusing on the interplay between geostrategy and policy making in governance, stability, capacity building and future proofing.

Mohammed has also worked as the deputy director of Watani, the UAE’s first initiative on national identity, and is also a founding member of the board of the Bussola Institute, a think tank in Brussels that focuses on the changing and emerging aspects of partnership between the EU and the GCC member states.

Mohammed Baharoon has a Master’s degree in English Literature from Texas Tech University in 1995 and an English Major from Kuwait University in 1987.

Dr. Dania Arayssi

Program Head and Senior Analyst, New Lines Institute 

Dr. Dania Arayssi is a Program Head and Senior Analyst at New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, where she works on policy research and analysis at the Central Asia Center, in addition to analysis of the dynamics of political economies in Lebanon, Syria, and the broader Middle East. Her research and policy work focus on political behavior, institutional trust, economic vulnerability, and the political effects of remittances. Arayssi also engages directly with U.S. policymakers and institutional stakeholders, producing analyses that inform congressional and executive branch decision-making.

Arayssi also serves as an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and teaches at George Washington University. Before joining New Lines, Arayssi held analytical and research roles with the World Bank, USAID, Oxfam America, and the U.S. Army War College. Her work has been published by Foreign Policy and the Digest of Middle East Studies as well as regional and international media outlets. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Colorado-Boulder and master’s degrees in the history of international relations, public policy, and political science, as well as a bachelor’s degree in international affairs.