Jan Havranek

Chief Government & Strategy Officer @ PBS AEROSPACE. Defense industrial base, propulsion, cryogenics. Former Czech MoD & NATO. Songwriter after hours.

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

Srdečné pozdravy z Washingtonu ⬇️🇺🇸🇨🇿🚀
https://t.co/1mVMjygTm4

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

My first single is out today 👇
https://t.co/jCBa3nnSAQ

[Czech Embassy in Washington @CZinWashington]

After 4 remarkable years in DC, we bid farewell to our Deputy Head of Mission, Jan Havránek 🇨🇿🇺🇸

Friends and partners gathered for an evening of memories and gratitude to celebrate years of transatlantic cooperation and friendship—complete with a live performance from Jan’s upcoming EP, "Between Worlds." 🎶

Thank you, Jan, for your dedication to strengthening Czech-American ties.
Wishing you and your family all the best on your next adventure!

[GlobalStatsX @GlobalStatsX]

🇺🇸🇨🇿 Largest Czech Population by U.S. State (2024)

1. 🇺🇸 Texas ➜ 186,078
2. 🇺🇸 Illinois ➜ 83,490
3. 🇺🇸 Minnesota ➜ 76,903
4. 🇺🇸 California ➜ 72,719
5. 🇺🇸 Wisconsin ➜ 71,391
6. 🇺🇸 Nebraska ➜ 70,282
7. 🇺🇸 Florida ➜ 50,417
8. 🇺🇸 Ohio ➜ 47,388
9. 🇺🇸 Iowa ➜ 44,950
10. 🇺🇸 New York ➜ 40,489
11. 🇺🇸 Pennsylvania ➜ 39,829
12. 🇺🇸 Michigan ➜ 37,640
13. 🇺🇸 Colorado ➜ 34,484
14. 🇺🇸 Washington ➜ 26,642
15. 🇺🇸 Arizona ➜ 26,322
16. 🇺🇸 Missouri ➜ 21,520
17. 🇺🇸 Virginia ➜ 20,288
18. 🇺🇸 Kansas ➜ 19,900
19. 🇺🇸 New Jersey ➜ 19,672
20. 🇺🇸 North Carolina ➜ 18,617
21. 🇺🇸 Maryland ➜ 16,884
22. 🇺🇸 South Dakota ➜ 16,620
23. 🇺🇸 Oregon ➜ 16,529
24. 🇺🇸 Oklahoma ➜ 14,656
25. 🇺🇸 Indiana ➜ 14,159
26. 🇺🇸 Georgia ➜ 14,155
27. 🇺🇸 Massachusetts ➜ 11,404
28. 🇺🇸 North Dakota ➜ 9,847
29. 🇺🇸 South Carolina ➜ 9,212
30. 🇺🇸 Connecticut ➜ 9,172

📌 Note: Figures are based on people reporting ancestry.
📊 Source: U.S. Census Bureau (ACS 5-Year Estimates)

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

Welcome to the future

[Palantir @PalantirTech]

Because we get asked a lot.

The Technological Republic, in brief.

1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.

2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.

3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.

4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.

6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.

7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.

8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.

9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.

10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.

11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.

12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.

13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.

14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.

15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.

16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.

17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.

18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.

19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.

20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.

21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.

22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?

Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska

https://t.co/8igjazz1On

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

Playing in Austin at the Czech House last night at @sxsw. Enjoyed jamming with @erik_huey 🎸

[Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs @CzechMFA]

Twenty-seven years ago, the Czech Republic joined the North Atlantic Alliance together with Poland and Hungary.
We became part of the strongest defense alliance.

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

@vojtaLa @SteveWitkoff @strakovka Proč by měla?

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

Druhý den v Mar-a-Lago. Využil jsem setkání se @SteveWitkoff, vyslancem prezidenta Trumpa pro Blízký východ, abych mu tlumočil aktuální pozici @strakovka k akci v Íránu.

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

Na pozvání v Mar-a-Lago v Den D. Osobně mi bylo velkou ctí setkat se s prezidentem Donaldem Trumpem během rozhodování o Íránu. Pokračujeme v posilování vztahů s naším klíčovým spojencem. 🇨🇿🇺🇸

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

Z dnešního „mediálního školení“ s @NEWSMAX ve Washingtonu. Mluvit nejen za zavřenými dveřmi, ale i před kamerou. I tohle je práce diplomata.

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

Přijal jsem pozvání kongresmana @AbrahamHamadeh do arizonského Scottsdale. Abe Hamadeh patří k loajalistům Donalda Trumpa, ale také racionálně uvažuje o současném světě. Proč Arizona? V loňském roce přesáhla obchodní výměna s ČR 500 milionů USD, zejména v oblasti letectví, polovodičů a pokročilých technologií. 🇨🇿🇺🇸

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

@APilarova Díky

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

Dnes mi poštou dorazila vlajka st��tu Texas, která vlála na texaském Kapitolu 22. prosince 2025. Je to poděkování za koordinaci loňského nasazení českého hasičského týmu při pomoci Texasu zasaženému povodněmi. Především je to ale poděkování našim hasičům – profesionálům, kteří znovu ukázali, že solidarita a služba nezná hranice. @hasici_cr

Thank you @wesvirdelltx

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

@MirthlessOrc Yes - Our government sent 16 member crew (and 4 dogs) to assist with search and rescue operations in Kerr County. They worked non-stop so no chance to visit Czech Stop, but our expat community provided kolaches, indeed 🥮

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

Milé setkání s předsedou Sněmovny reprezentantů @SpeakerJohnson při tradičním louisianském Mardi Gras. Louisiana je klíčovým partnerem 🇨🇿, mj. odebíráme LNG a již více než 15 let k nám na #DnyNATO létají z Barksdale Air Force Base strategické bombardéry B-52.

[Jan Havranek @HavranekDefense]

America at 250 is a moment that TRULY MATTERS. Thank you Amb. Ric Grenell @RichardGrenell — special missions advisor to @realDonaldTrump and President of the Trump-Kennedy Center @kencen — for your leadership. The Czech–U.S. partnership continues to grow stronger than ever. 🇨🇿🇺🇸

[Matúš Huťka @MatusHutka]

My honor to open the screening & U.S. premiere of the Slovak and Czech movie Better Go Mad in the Wild in Washington, D.C. Thank you @EUintheUS & @AmericanFilm 🇸🇰🇨🇿🇺🇸 Always a pleasure #MiroRemo & @JanHavranek2

[The Adam Smith Center for Economic Freedom @AdamSmithCenter]

This semester, our Senior Leadership Fellows program offered students the opportunity to learn firsthand about foreign policy leadership from Jan Havránek, the former Deputy Minister of Defense of the Czech Republic.

Over eight sessions, students examined the evolution of 21st-century foreign-policy leadership, the future of transatlantic relations, emerging strategies to counter hybrid warfare and disinformation, and the role of innovation in diplomacy, among other topics.

We are proud of our students for tackling today’s most pressing foreign-policy challenges.

#AdamSmithCenter #Leadership #EconomicFreedom

[Peter Rough @peterrough]

A truly great man. A giant of international security studies. A very, very great loss. A mighty oak has fallen. | RICHARD H SHULTZ Jr. https://t.co/zSPok1Ex02