Freedom House

Michael J. Abramowitz is president of Freedom House. Before joining Freedom House in February 2017, he was director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education. He led the museum’s genocide prevention efforts and later oversaw its public education programs.

He was previously National Editor and then White House correspondent for the Washington Post. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former fellow at the German Marshall Fund and the Hoover Institution. A graduate of Harvard College, he is also a board member of the National Security Archive.

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Elliott Abrams is senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington, DC. He served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor in the administration of President George W. Bush, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House, and as Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela in the administration of Donald Trump.

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University of Virginia

Gerard Alexander is an associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia. He is author of The Sources of Democratic Consolidation and scholarly articles on empirical democratic theory, institutional change, and conditions for democratic stability. He has also written on U.S. politics in the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Review, the Weekly Standard, and the Claremont Review of Books.

His research focuses on the conditions of democratic consolidation in advanced industrial countries, as well as factors affecting the size and role of government in selected cases in Western Europe and also the United States, and how they influence conservative attempts at reform of welfare states.

Alexander earned his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University.

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Center for Strategic and International Studies

Ryan C. Berg is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he focuses on transnational organized crime, narco trafficking, and illicit networks. He also studies Latin American foreign policy and development issues.

Before joining CSIS, Dr. Berg served as a research consultant at the World Bank, a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil, and a visiting doctoral fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. He has also worked in Peru and São Paulo, Brazil.

Dr. Berg obtained a PhD and an MPhil in political science and an MSc in global governance and diplomacy from the University of Oxford. Earlier, he obtained a BA in government and theology from Georgetown University.

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CURRENTLY UNABLE TO SPEAK DUE TO SERVICE AT DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Dr. Peter Berkowitz is the Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff in the office of the Secretary. Dr. Berkowitz joined the State Department from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University where he is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow.

In addition to teaching regularly in the United States and Israel, Dr. Berkowitz has led seminars on the principles of freedom and the American constitutional tradition for students from Burma at the George W. Bush Presidential Center and for Korean students at Underwood International College at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.

He holds a JD and a PhD in political science from Yale University, an MA in philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a BA in English literature from Swarthmore College.

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American Foreign Policy Council

Ilan Berman is Senior Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC. An expert on regional security in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Russian Federation, he has consulted for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency as well as the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, and has also provided assistance on foreign policy and national security issues to a range of governmental agencies and congressional offices. He has been called one of America's "leading experts on the Middle East and Iran" by CNN.

Mr. Berman is a member of the Associated Faculty at Missouri State University's Department of Defense and Strategic Studies. A frequent writer and commentator, he has written for the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Washington Post and USA Today, among many other publications.

Mr. Berman is the editor of six books: Dismantling Tyranny: Transitioning Beyond Totalitarian Regimes (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), co-edited with J. Michael Waller; Taking on Tehran: Strategies for Confronting the Islamic Republic (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); Iran's Strategic Penetration of Latin America (Lexington Books, 2015), co-edited with Joseph Humire; The Logic of Irregular War: Asymmetry and America’s Adversaries (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017); Digital Dictators: Media, Authoritarianism, and America’s New Challenge (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018); and, most recently, Wars of Ideas: Theology, Interpretation and Power in the Muslim World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).

He is also the author of five others: Tehran Rising: Iran's Challenge to the United States (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), Winning the Long War: Retaking the Offensive Against Radical Islam (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), Implosion: The End of Russia and What It Means for America (Regnery Publishing, 2013); Iran's Deadly Ambition: The Islamic Republic's Quest for Global Power (Encounter Books, 2015), and The Fight for Iran: Opposition Politics, Protest, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Nation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).

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National Endowment for Democracy

Stephen E. Biegun has more than three decades of international affairs experience in government and the private sector, including high-level government service with the Department of State, the White House, and the United States Congress.

In 2021, Mr. Biegun concluded his most recent government service as the Deputy Secretary of State, to which he was confirmed by by the Senate with a strong bipartisan vote of 90-3. Prior to his most recent government service, Mr. Biegun served as 15 years as a corporate vice president with Ford Motor Company.

Mr. Biegun began his career as a foreign policy specialist with the United States Congress, with a focus on Russia, the former Soviet Union, and Europe, ultimately rising to a number of senior-level positions including as chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as the national security advisor to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. He served two years as the Executive Secretary of the White House National Security Council, serving as an advisor and deputy to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. From1992-1994, Mr. Biegun was the Resident Program Director in the Russian Federation for the International Republican Institute.

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Center for Strategic and International Studies

Kari A. Bingen is the director of the Aerospace Security Project and a senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Prior to the private sector, Kari served as the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, overseeing the defense intelligence and security enterprises, comprising more than 120,000 personnel and an annual budget of over $54 billion. Before that, Kari served as the policy director on the House Armed Services Committee and staff lead for its Strategic Forces Subcommittee, advising members of Congress on defense policy, program, and budget matters.

In addition to her work at CSIS, Kari is an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University. She is a member of the U.S. Strategic Command Strategic Advisory Group, was a commissioner on the CSIS Technology and Intelligence Task Force, and serves on a number of corporate and nonprofit advisory boards.

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Dan Blumenthal is a senior fellow and the director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr. Blumenthal has served in and advised the US government on China issues for more than a decade.

Before joining AEI, Mr. Blumenthal served as senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the US Department of Defense. He served as a commissioner on the congressionally mandated US-China Economic and Security Review Commission from 2006 to 2012, and he was vice chairman of the commission in 2007. He also served on the Academic Advisory Board of the congressional US-China Working Group.

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Foundation for the Defense of Democracies

Bradley Bowman serves as senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he focuses on U.S. defense strategy and policy. He has served as a national security advisor to members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, as well as an active duty U.S. Army officer, Black Hawk pilot, and assistant professor at West Point.

Bradley spent nearly nine years in the U.S. Senate, including six years as the top defense advisor to Senator Kelly Ayotte, then-senior Republican on the Armed Services Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee. Bradley also served as national security advisor to Senator Todd Young and worked as a Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Bradley served more than 15 years on active duty as a U.S. Army officer, including time as a company commander, pilot, congressional affairs officer on the Army staff in the Pentagon, and staff officer in Afghanistan.

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Peterson Institute for International Economics

Chad P. Bown, Reginald Jones Senior Fellow since March 2018, joined the Peterson Institute for International Economics as a senior fellow in April 2016. His research examines international trade laws and institutions, trade negotiations, and trade disputes. He cohosts Trade Talks, a weekly podcast on the economics of international trade policy.

Bown previously served as senior economist for international trade and investment in the White House on the Council of Economic Advisers and most recently as a lead economist at the World Bank. Bown received a BA magna cum laude in economics and international relations from Bucknell University and a PhD in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).

Hal served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Strategic Planning from 2015 to 2016, and has been a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He has also consulted with a range of government offices and agencies in the intelligence and national security communities and served as lead writer for the Commission on the National Defense Strategy for the United States.

Hal received his BA from Stanford University (2005) and his PhD from Yale University (2009). He previously worked at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the Institute for Defense Analyses.

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The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Christian Brose is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and head of strategy at Anduril Industries. From 2015-18, he was staff director of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, and before that served as senior policy adviser to U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ). From 2008-09, Mr. Brose was senior editor of Foreign Policy magazine. Prior to that, he served as policy adviser and chief speechwriter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2005-08, working as a member of the secretary’s Policy Planning Staff.

Mr. Brose began his career in public service as a speechwriter for U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. He studied political science at Kenyon College and international economics at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and two sons.

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The Atlantic Council

Ian Brzezinski is a resident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and is on the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Advisors Group.

He brings to the Council more than two decades of experience in US national security matters, having served in senior policy positions in the US Department of Defense and the US Congress. He currently leads the Brzezinski Group, which provides strategic insight and advice to government and commercial clients.

For his public service, Brzezinski has been awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service; the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gedimas; the Latvian Ministry of Defense Award; the Romanian Medal for National Service, Order of Commander; and the Order of Merit, Republic of Poland, Officer Class.

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Armitage International

Ms. Kara L. Bue is a founding partner of Armitage International, L.C. Previously, she served as deputy assistant secretary for political-military affairs at the Department of State. In that capacity, Ms. Bue managed programs involving government-to-government arms sales, coalition support and foreign military assistance, non-UN peacekeeping, critical infrastructure protection, destruction and security of small arms and light weapons, and humanitarian mine action.

Before joining the Department of State, Ms. Bue practiced corporate law in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, California. She also has held other positions in government at the Department of Defense and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Ms. Bue received a J.D. from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles and is admitted to practice law in the State of California and the District of Columbia. She graduated from Brown University with a dual A.B. in political science and organizational behavior & management.

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Baylor University

Peter Campbell, Ph.D., is associate professor of political science in Baylor University’s College of Arts & Sciences. He is the author of two books: “Military Realism: The Logic and Limits of Force and Innovation in the U.S. Army” and “Farewell to the Marshal Statesman: The Decline of Military Experience Among Politicians and its Consequences.”

Campbell studies international security, civil-military relations, strategy and national security decision-making, international relations scholarship and policy relevance, insurgency and counterinsurgency, the just war tradition, unconventional warfare and advanced military technology, military culture, and the effects of cyber capabilities on conflict escalation.

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Heritage Foundation

James Jay Carafano, a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, is the vice president of Heritage's Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy and the E. W. Richardson Fellow.

He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and serves as a visiting professor at National Defense University. Carafano, a 25-year Army veteran with a master’s and doctorate from Georgetown University, joined Heritage in 2003 as a senior research fellow in homeland security and missile defense.

He holds an M.A. in British and early modern European history from Georgetown University, an M.A. in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, and a Ph.D. in diplomatic history from Georgetown.

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HII

Eric D. Chewning is Executive Vice President of Strategy & Development for HII, an all-domain defense and technologies partner and America’s largest shipbuilder.

Eric was named to the position in January 2023. He has over 20 years of experience across government and industry working issues at the intersection of national security, technology, and business.

Prior to joining HII, he co-led McKinsey & Company’s Aerospace & Defense practice in the Americas.

While in government, Eric was the Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of Defense. In this role he led the Secretary’s executive team, working across the military services, Joint Staff, Combatant Commanders, and senior civilian political appointees. He also provided counsel and advice to the Secretary on all matters concerning the Department.

Prior to serving as the Chief of Staff, Eric was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy. In this capacity, he was the principal advisor for analyzing the capabilities, policies, and overall health of America’s defense industrial base.

A former U.S. Army military intelligence officer, he is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Prior to his military service, Eric was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley & Co. where he focused on corporate finance and mergers & acquisitions in the global industrials sector.

Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

In July 2019, Eliot A. Cohen was appointed the ninth dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Cohen has been a respected member of the school’s faculty since his appointment as the Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies in 1990.

From April 2007 through January 2009 he served as Counselor of the Department of State. A principal officer of the Department, he had special responsibility for advising the Secretary on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia, as well as general strategic issues. He represented the Department of State in interagency coordination with senior National Security Council staff, Department of Defense, and intelligence community officials on a number of issues.

Cohen is a 1977 graduate of Harvard College and earned his PhD in political science from the university in 1982.

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The RAND Corporation

Raphael "Rafi" Cohen is the acting director of the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE, and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. He works on a broad range of defense and foreign policy issues, including defense strategy and force planning, Middle East and European security and civil-military relations.

Cohen previously held research fellowships at the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute and the National Defense University’s Center for Complex Operations. He has written for a variety of forums, including the Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, Orbis, Fox News, War on the Rocks, Lawfare, The National Interest and other publications. He also served as a staffer on the Congressionally-appointed 2018 National Defense Strategy Commission.

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Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense

Elbridge Colby is the former Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, where he led CNAS’ work on defense issues.

Previously, Colby served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development from 2017-2018. In that role, he served as the lead official in the development and rollout of the Department’s preeminent strategic planning guidance, the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS).

Colby is a recipient of the Exceptional Public Service Award from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and of the Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards from the Department of State. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute of Strategic Studies. Colby is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.

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Yorktown Institute

Seth Cropsey began his career as assistant to the Secretary of Defense and was later commissioned as a naval officer. He served as deputy Undersecretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration and acting assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict in the George H. W. Bush administration. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he became director of the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau in the George W. Bush administration. Following 15 years as a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, Mr. Cropsey founded Yorktown Institute in 2022 and is the Institute’s president.

National Endowment for Democracy

Ambassador Currie served as U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues and the U.S. Representative at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Prior to her appointment, she led the Department of State’s Office of Global Criminal Justice (2019) and served under Ambassador Nikki Haley as the United States’ Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council and Alternative Representative to the UN General Assembly (2017-2018). Throughout her career in foreign policy, Ambassador Currie has specialized in human rights, political reform, development and humanitarian issues, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region. From 2009 until her appointment to the USUN leadership, she served as a Senior Fellow with the Project 2049 Institute. She has held senior policy positions with the Department of State, the U.S. Congress, and several international and non-governmental human rights and humanitarian organizations. Ambassador Currie received a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center, and an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Center for a New American Security

Lisa Curtis is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). She is a foreign policy and national security expert with over 20 years of service in the U.S. government, including at the NSC, CIA, State Department, and Capitol Hill. Her work has centered on U.S. policy toward the Indo-Pacific and South Asia, with a particular focus on U.S.- India strategic relations; Quad (U.S., Australia, India, and Japan) cooperation; counterterrorism strategy in South and Central Asia; and China’s role in the region.

Ms. Curtis served as Deputy Assistant to the President and NSC Senior Director for South and Central Asia from 2017-2021. From 2006–2017, Ms. Curtis was Senior Fellow on South Asia at The Heritage Foundation. She also served as Professional Staff Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, handling the South Asia portfolio for former Chairman of the Committee, Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) from 2003–2006. Before that, she worked as a Senior Advisor in the South Asia Bureau at the State Department. In the late 1990s, she worked as a senior analyst on South Asia at the CIA, and from 1994–1998 served at the U.S. Embassies in Pakistan and India.

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President, Long Term Strategy Group

Dr. Jacqueline Deal is President and CEO of the Long Term Strategy Group, a Washington, DC-based defense consultancy. For the last fourteen years, she has worked with the Director of the Office of the Secretary of Defense/Net Assessment on projects related to East Asia. Recent studies include an analysis of the security implications of alternative Chinese futures, an assessment of China’s capacity for technological innovation, and a book chapter on China’s energy security strategy.

Deal has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies in the Government Department of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences.

Deal graduated Harvard summa cum laude, holds a M.A. in philosophy from Harvard, and earned her Ph.D in philosophy from Oxford.

Future of Diplomacy Project, Harvard University Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs

Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky, a foreign policy expert and former diplomat specializing in national security affairs, is a senior fellow at the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and vice chair of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

From 2010 to 2012, she was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs at Thomson Reuters, where she was instrumental in developing Thomson Reuters’ financial regulatory strategy. During this time, she was also appointed the Distinguished National Security Chair at the US Naval Academy. From 2001 to 2009, Ambassador Dobriansky served as Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs. Among her primary accomplishments, she established and led the US-India, US-China, and US- Brazil Global Issues Fora. In February 2007, as the President’s Envoy to Northern Ireland, Ambassador Dobriansky received the Secretary of State’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, for her contribution to the historic devolution of power in Belfast.

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Hudson Institute

Michael Doran is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. He specializes in Middle East security issues.

In the administration of President George W. Bush, Doran served in the White House as a senior director in the National Security Council, where he was responsible for helping to devise and coordinate United States strategies on a variety of Middle East issues, including Arab-Israeli relations and U.S. efforts to contain Iran and Syria. He also served in the Bush administration as a senior advisor in the State Department and a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Pentagon.

He received a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University.

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Foundation for the Defense of Democracies

Mark Dubowitz is the chief executive of FDD, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan policy institute. Mr. Dubowitz has advised the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and testified more than twenty times before the U.S. Congress and foreign legislatures. He is the author or co-author of dozens of studies on economic sanctions and Iran’s nuclear program and is widely published and cited in U.S. and international media. Mr. Dubowitz founded FDD’s Iran Program and co-founded FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power, Center on Military and Political Power, and China Program.

Mr. Dubowitz has a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies where he focused on China, and JD and MBA degrees from the University of Toronto.

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George Mason University

Colin Dueck is a Professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and a non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He studied politics at Princeton University, and international relations at Oxford under a Rhodes scholarship.

His current research focus is on the relationship between party politics, presidential leadership, American conservatism, and U.S. foreign policy strategies. He has worked as a foreign policy adviser on several Republican presidential campaigns, and acted as a consultant for the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the National Security Council.

A Rhodes scholar, Dr. Dueck has a PhD in politics from Princeton University and an MPhil in international relations from Oxford University.

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Duke University School of Law

Charles J. Dunlap Jr. joined the Duke Law faculty in July 2010 where he is a professor of the practice of law and Executive Director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security. His teaching and scholarly writing focus on national security, law of armed conflict, the use of force under international law, civil-military relations, cyberwar, airpower, military justice, and ethical issues related to the practice of national security law.

Dunlap retired from the Air Force in June 2010, having attained the rank of major general during a 34-year career in the Judge Advocate General Corps. In his capacity as Deputy Judge Advocate General from May 2006 to March 2010, he assisted the Judge Advocate General in the professional supervision of more than 2,200 judge advocates, 350 civilian lawyers, 1,400 enlisted paralegals, and 500 civilians around the world.

Dunlap holds a B.A. from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and a J.D from Villanova.

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Project 2049 Institute

Ian Easton is Senior Director at the Project 2049 Institute, where he conducts research on defense and security issues in Asia. During the summer of 2013 he was a visiting fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA) in Tokyo. Previously, Ian worked as a China analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) for two years. Prior to that, he lived in Taipei from 2005 to 2010. During his time in Taiwan, he worked as a translator for Island Technologies Inc. and the Foundation for Asia-Pacific Peace Studies. While in Taiwan, he also conducted research with the Asia Bureau Chief of Defense News. Ian is the author of "The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan's Defense and American Strategy in Asia" (The Project 2049 Institute, October 2017).

Ian holds an M.A. in China Studies from National Chengchi University in Taiwan and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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Center for Strategic and International Studies

Charles Edel is the inaugural Australia Chair and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He previously taught at the University of Sydney, where he was also a senior fellow at the United States Studies Centre. Prior to that, Dr. Edel was a professor of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College and served on the U.S. secretary of state’s Policy Planning Staff from 2015 to 2017. In that role, he advised the secretary of state on political and security issues in the Indo-Pacific region. He has also been a global fellow at the Wilson Center and a Henry Luce scholar at Peking University's Center for International and Strategic Studies, and he was awarded the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship. He is the coauthor of The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order (Yale University Press, 2019) and author of Nation Builder: John Quincy Adams and the Grand Strategy of the Republic (Harvard University Press, 2014). Currently, he is working on a book examining the United States' history of dealing with authoritarian regimes. In addition to his scholarly publications, his writings appear in the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and various other outlets. He also regularly offers foreign policy commentary on television and radio, including CNBC, ABC, Sky News, Australia’s RN, and NPR. He is a New York native and former high school history teacher in New York City, as well as an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserves. Dr. Edel holds a PhD in history from Yale University and received a BA in classics from Yale College.

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Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

Ambassador Eric S. Edelman retired as a career minister from the US Foreign Service on May 1, 2009. He has served in senior positions at the Departments of State and Defense as well as the White House.

As undersecretary of defense for policy (August 2005-January 2009), he was DoD's senior policy official, overseeing strategy development with global responsibility for bilateral defense relations, war plans, special operations forces, homeland defense, missile defense, nuclear weapons and arms control policies, counterproliferation, counternarcotics, counterterrorism, arms sales, and defense trade controls. He served as US ambassador to Finland in the Clinton administration and Turkey in the Bush administration.

He received a B.A. in history and government from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in U.S. diplomatic history from Yale University.

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Fata Advisory LLC

Daniel Fata is the president of Fata Advisory LLC. He is a public policy expert, national security consultant, and strategic adviser focused on helping companies and organizations enhance their product and program offerings through the development of comprehensive government affairs strategies, risk assessments, strategic planning, and advocacy initiatives. He has more than 25 years of experience working in Congress (as a leadership staffer in both the House and Senate), at the Department of Defense (as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO), in the aerospace and defense industry (as a vice president at Lockheed Martin Corp), and in the consulting arena (as a vice president at the Cohen Group).

Fata is an expert on issues regarding U.S. national security, government relations, strategic risk, European foreign policy, the global aerospace and defense industry, the industrial base supply chain, technology, and third-party advocacy campaigns, among other issues. He is also active in numerous technology start-up efforts. In February 2022, Fata was appointed by the U.S. Senate leadership to serve as one of 16 commissioners on the congressionally mandated Afghanistan War Commission. The commission was established in the FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act to study the United States’ 20-year involvement in the war in Afghanistan and to assess lessons learned for future conflicts. The commission has a three-year mandate.

Fata has been affiliated with some of the United States’ leading think tanks and nongovernmental organizations and is a regular guest lecturer at leading U.S. colleges and universities. He graduated with honors from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He earned his master’s degree in international relations from Boston University.

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McCain Institute

Paul Fagan is the director of the Human Rights and Democracy programs for the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University. Previously, he served as the executive director of the Eastern Congo Initiative (ECI), an organization founded by Ben Affleck that seeks to bring the world’s attention to the ongoing situation in that country but also highlight the abundant opportunities for economic and social development. 

Prior to joining ECI, Fagan worked at the International Republican Institute (IRI), an organization that promotes democracy worldwide by developing political parties, civic institutions, democratic governance and the rule of law. He was IRI’s Africa director for nearly four years, overseeing IRI’s programs during South Sudan’s successful and historic transition to independence; led election observation missions to Nigeria and Somaliland; implemented IRI’s first programs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and ushered in IRI’s return to Mali. He was also chief of party for IRI’s programs in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Earlier while at IRI, he worked on programs in the former Soviet Union and Latin America, serving as the Latin America and Caribbean division deputy director.

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The McCain Institute

Dr. Evelyn N. Farkas has three decades of experience working on national security and foreign policy in the U.S. executive, legislative branch, private sector and for international organizations overseas. In 2019-2020 she ran to represent New York’s 17th Congressional District in the House of Representatives. She is currently the executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University. Prior to that, she was president of Farkas Global Strategies and a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United State and the Atlantic Council and national security contributor for NBC/MSNBC.

She served from 2012 to 2015 as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, Balkans, Caucasus and conventional arms control. From 2010 to 2012, she was the senior advisor to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and special advisor to the Secretary of Defense for the NATO Summit. Prior to that, she was the executive director of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism and senior fellow at the American Security Project. From 2001 to 2008, she served as a professional staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee responsible for Asia Pacific, Western Hemisphere, Special Operations Command, and policy issues including combatting terrorism and export control.

From 1997-2001, Dr. Farkas was a professor of international relations at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College. She served 1996-97 in Bosnia with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). She has published numerous journal articles and opinion pieces and “Fractured States and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, Ethiopia, and Bosnia in the 1990s “(Palgrave/St. Martin’s Press). She speaks Hungarian and German and has studied French, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, Russian and Hindi.

Dr. Farkas obtained her M.A. and Ph.D. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She serves as a D.C. family court-appointed special advocate. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Board of Directors for the Project 2049 Institute, Supporters of Civil Society in Russia, Leadership Council-Women in National Security, and the Board of Trustees of her alma mater, Franklin & Marshall College.

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Duke University

Peter D. Feaver is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke University. He is Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy. Feaver is author of Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Harvard Press, 2003).

From June 2005 to July 2007, Feaver served as Special Advisor for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform on the National Security Council Staff at the White House where his responsibilities included the national security strategy, regional strategy reviews, and other political-military issues. In 1993-94, Feaver served as Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control on the National Security Council at the White House.

Feaver earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University in 1990, his M.A. from Harvard University in 1986, and his B.A. in international relations from Lehigh University in 1983.

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Center for a New American Security

David Feith served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Before that, he was an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong.

At the Department of State from 2017 to 2021, David helped create the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy and reorient U.S. policy toward China and Asia generally. As Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, he oversaw the Offices of Multilateral Affairs and Regional and Security Policy, with responsibility for South China Sea policy, relations with the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), security cooperation, foreign assistance programming, and budgeting. He regularly represented the State Department in the interagency policy process, official multilateral forums, and other international meetings.

From 2017 to 2019, David served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, advising on relations with China and countries across the Indo-Pacific region, for which he received a Superior Honor Award. In this capacity he helped launch the Indo-Pacific Business Forum and establish a range of initiatives focused on great-power competition, strengthening alliances and partnerships, and commercial diplomacy.

At The Wall Street Journal, David was based in Hong Kong from 2013 to 2017, writing editorials on Asian economic and political affairs, and was earlier an op-ed editor for three years in New York. He also worked as an assistant editor at Foreign Affairs magazine.

David has consulted for the U.S. Air Force and published a book entitled Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education. He has a B.A. in history from Columbia University.

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International Republican Institute

Daniel W. Fisk is the Chief Operations Officer of the International Republican Institute (IRI), having served in this position since January 2015. He first joined IRI in September 2009 to coordinate its governance programs.

Fisk previously served in a number of positions in the U.S. Government, including as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the National Security Council; and as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

He holds a juris doctor and master’s degree in government from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tulsa. He is a member of the Maryland State Bar Association, as well as the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty

Jamie Fly is president and chief executive officer of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a position he also held from 2019-2020. Fly was formerly a senior fellow and senior advisor to the president of the German Marshall Fund (GMF) where he researched transatlantic relations, U.S. foreign policy, great power competition with Russia and China, and democracy and human rights.

He served as counselor for foreign and national security affairs to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) from 2013-17. Fly served in the Bush administration at the National Security Council (2008-09) and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005-08). For his work in the Department of Defense, he was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. Fly received a B.A. in international studies and political science from American University and an M.A. in German and European studies from Georgetown University.

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Center for New American Security

Richard Fontaine is the Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department and the National Security Council.

At the State Department, Mr. Fontaine worked in the office of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and in the department’s South Asia bureau. Mr. Fontaine began his foreign policy career as a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, focusing on the Middle East and South Asia. He also spent a year teaching English in Japan.

A native of New Orleans, Mr. Fontaine graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in International Relations from Tulane University. He also holds a M.A. in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, and he attended Oxford University.

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The Atlantic Council

In the course of his forty-year Foreign Service career, Ambassador Fried played a key role in designing and implementing American policy in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. As Special Assistant and NSC Senior Director for Presidents Clinton and Bush, Ambassador to Poland, and Assistant Secretary of State for Europe (2005-09), Ambassador Fried helped craft the policy of NATO enlargement to Central European nations and, in parallel, NATO-Russia relations, thus advancing the goal of Europe whole, free, and at peace. During those years, the West’s community of democracy and security grew in Europe. Ambassador Fried helped lead the West’s response to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine starting in 2014: as State Department Coordinator for Sanctions Policy, he crafted U.S. sanctions against Russia, the largest U.S. sanctions program to date, and negotiated the imposition of similar sanctions by Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia

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Foundation for the Defense of Democracies

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at FDD where he focuses on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, and intelligence. He was previously a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the director of the Middle East Initiative at the Project for the New American Century. Earlier, he served as a Middle Eastern specialist at the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.

Reuel is the author of The Wave: Man, God, and the Ballot Box in the Middle East, Know Thine Enemy: A Spy’s Journey into Revolutionary Iran and The Islamic Paradox: Shiite Clerics, Sunni Fundamentalists, and the Coming of Arab Democracy. He has been a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, as well as a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Dispatch, and other publications.

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Foundation for the Defense of Democracy

Richard Goldberg is a senior advisor at FDD. From 2019-2020, Richard served as the Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction for the White House National Security Council. He previously served as chief of staff for Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and deputy chief of staff and senior foreign policy adviser to former U.S. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois in both the U.S. House and Senate.

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Center for Strategic and International Studies

Bonnie Glick is a senior adviser (non-resident) with the Project on Prosperity and Development at CSIS. Glick served as the deputy administrator and chief operating officer (COO) of the U.S. Agency for International Development from January 2019-November 2020. She worked for 12 years as a Foreign Service officer in the U.S. Department of State. She later worked for IBM as a global account executive. In her role as deputy administrator and COO, Glick's portfolio covered all Agency programs worldwide and all Agency operations. Among the issues she championed were digital transformation, the significance of 5G in emerging markets, private sector engagement, democracy and governance, global vaccine distribution, the Abraham Accords, and food security. She was the executive sponsor of USAID’s COVID-19 Task Force that addressed both the safety and security of the global workforce and the international response to the outbreak.

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The Wilson Center

Ambassador Mark Green (ret.) serves as the President, Director, and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a non-partisan policy forum for tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue so that Congress, the administration, and the international policy community can act.

Prior to joining the Wilson Center, Green served as Executive Director of the McCain Institute, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Prior to USAID, he served as President of the International Republican Institute, President and CEO of the Initiative for Global Development, and senior director at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. Green served as the U.S. ambassador to Tanzania from mid-2007 to early 2009. Before that, he served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Wisconsin’s 8th District.

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Center for Strategic and International Studies

Michael Jonathan Green is senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and director of Asian Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

He served on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) from 2001 through 2005, first as director for Asian affairs with responsibility for Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, and then as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Asia, with responsibility for East Asia and South Asia.

He received his master’s and doctoral degrees from SAIS and did additional graduate and postgraduate research at Tokyo University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his bachelor’s degree in history from Kenyon College with highest honors.

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University of Texas, Austin

Sheena Chestnut Greitens is associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT, where she directs UT's Asia Policy Program, a joint initiative of the Clements Center for National Security and the Strauss Center for International Security & Law. She is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and an associate in research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University.

Dr. Greitens's research focuses on American national security, East Asia and authoritarian politics & foreign policy. Her first book, Dictators and their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence (Cambridge, 2016) received multiple academic awards. Her second book, on authoritarianism and diaspora politics in North Korea, and forthcoming from Cambridge University Press (Elements Series in East Asia). Her third book manuscript is on internal security and Chinese grand strategy.

Dr. Greitens's work has appeared in academic journals and edited volumes in English, Chinese and Korean, and in major media outlets, and she has testified before Congress on security and democracy in the Indo-Pacific. From 2015–20, she was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri and co-director of its Institute for Korean Studies. She also has been a Brookings Institution nonresident senior fellow, and an adjunct fellow with the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In 2017–18, Dr. Greitens served as the first lady of Missouri, where she co-led the state's trade missions to China and South Korea and ran an interagency policy initiative that led to major legislative and executive-branch reforms of Missouri's policies on foster care, adoption and child abuse prevention. She also worked to appoint women to statewide boards and commissions.

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Foreign Policy Research Insitute

Mary Habeck is a strategic planner and an expert on military matters, Islam, and extremism. She teaches on al-Qa’ida and ISIS at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and at Georgetown, while running her consulting firm, Applied Grand Strategies.

Dr. Habeck was appointed by President Bush to the Council on the Humanities at the National Endowment for the Humanities (2006-2013), and in 2008-2009 she was the Special Advisor for Strategic Planning on the National Security Council staff.

She received her PhD in history from Yale in 1996, an MA in international relations from Yale in 1989, and a BA in international studies, Russian, and Spanish from Ohio State in 1987.

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Center for Strategic and International Studies

Emily Harding is deputy director and senior fellow with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She joined CSIS from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), where she was deputy staff director. In her nearly 20 years of government service, she has served in a series of high-profile national security positions at critical moments. While working for SSCI, she led the Committee’s multiyear investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. The five-volume, 1,300-page report reshaped the way the United States defends itself against foreign adversaries seeking to manipulate elections, and it was lauded for its rigor, its thoroughness, and as the only bipartisan effort on election interference. During her tenure on the Committee, she also served as the subject matter expert on election security, counterintelligence and associated cybersecurity issues, and the Middle East. She oversaw the activities of 18 intelligence agencies and led SSCI staff in drafting legislation, conducting oversight of the intelligence community, and developing their expertise in intelligence community matters.

Center for Strategic and International Studies

Todd Harrison is a senior associate of Aerospace Security Project and Defense Budget Analysis at CSIS, he was director of Defense Budget Analysis and director of Aerospace Security Project and senior fellow of International Security Program. As a senior fellow in the International Security Program, he led the Center’s efforts to provide in-depth, nonpartisan research and analysis of defense funding, space security, and air power issues. He has authored publications on trends in the defense budget, military space systems, threats to space systems, civil space exploration, defense acquisitions, military compensation and readiness, and military force structure, among other topics. He teaches classes on military space systems and the defense budget at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Mr. Harrison joined CSIS from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, where he was a senior fellow for defense budget studies. He previously worked at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he consulted for the U.S. Air Force on satellite communications systems and supported a variety of other clients evaluating the performance of acquisition programs. Prior to Booz Allen, he worked for AeroAstro Inc. developing advanced space technologies and as a management consultant at Diamond Cluster International. Mr. Harrison served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with both a B.S. and an M.S. in aeronautics and astronautics.

The Brookings Institution

Fiona Hill is a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019. From 2006 to 2009, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at The National Intelligence Council. She is co-author of “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin”, published in 2013.

Hill has researched and published extensively on issues related to Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, regional conflicts, energy, and strategic issues. Her book with Brookings Senior Fellow Clifford Gaddy, “The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold,” was published in December 2003, and her monograph, “Energy Empire: Oil, Gas and Russia’s Revival,” was published in 2004.

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Hampden-Sydney College

The Honorable Dr. John Hillen is an award-winning CEO and leadership expert, former Assistant Secretary of State, public intellectual, decorated combat veteran, and popular college and business school professor. He currently serves as the James C. Wheat Professor in Leadership at historic Hampden-Sydney College where he teaches courses in leadership, grand strategy, and other topics. He also teaches in the MBA program at George Mason University and his course in strategy there has won him the most outstanding professor award three times.

Unanimously confirmed by the Senate in 2005, Hillen served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs in the second half of the Bush administration and in that capacity spent much of his time with U.S. and allied troops in war zones from Iraq to Afghanistan to the southern Philippines. He has written or edited several books on international security affairs and has published articles in dozens of journals and newspapers, including Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He has appeared on every major television network and was an on-air commentator for ABC News for a number of years.

Hillen, who served for 12 years as an Army reconnaissance officer and paratrooper, was awarded the Bronze Star for his role in the Battle of the 73 Easting during Operation Desert Storm. He recently spent nine years on the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel, the federal advisory committee supporting the head of the U.S. Navy and received the Navy’s Meritorious Public Service Award in 2017. He was the military advisor on the original Call of Duty video game series set in World War II. In 2020 he was inducted into the US Army’s national ROTC hall of fame.

He has been the CEO of four mid-sized companies in both New York and Washington DC, but public and privately held. He serves on a number of corporate and non-profit boards, including National Review, The Foreign Policy Research Institute, and The Vandenberg Coalition.

Dr. Hillen graduated from Duke University with degrees in public policy studies and history and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship after graduation. He holds a master’s degree in war studies from King’s College London, a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University, and an MBA from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute

Rachel Hoff serves as Policy Director at the Ronald Reagan Institute, the Washington DC office of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. Before joining the Institute, she was Communications Director and Policy Advisor for John McCain at the Senate Armed Services Committee. Rachel has conducted research and outreach for a number of think tanks in Washington, including the American Enterprise Institute, the American Action Forum, and the Foreign Policy Initiative, an organization she helped found in 2009. She also worked as a Legislative Assistant for Congressman Mac Thornberry.

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University of Texas at Austin

William Inboden is Executive Director and William Powers, Jr. Chair at the William P. Clements, Jr. Center for National Security at the University of Texas-Austin. Inboden’s other current roles include Associate with the National Intelligence Council, Member of the CIA’s Historical Review Panel, Member of the State Department’s Historical Advisory Council

Previously he served as Senior Director for Strategic Planning on the National Security Council at the White House, where he worked on a range of foreign policy issues including the National Security Strategy, strategic forecasting, democracy and governance, contingency planning, counter-radicalization, and multilateral institutions and initiatives. Inboden also worked at the Department of State as a Member of the Policy Planning Staff and a Special Advisor in the Office of International Religious Freedom.

Inboden received his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in history from Yale University, and his A.B. in history from Stanford University.

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Dartmouth College

Douglas Irwin is John French Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy , which The Economist and Foreign Affairs selected as one of their Best Books of the Year. He is also the author of Free Trade Under Fire, Trade Policy Disaster: Lessons from the 1930s, Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression, and The Genesis of the GATT .

He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and an non-resident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He worked on trade policy issues while on the staff of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers and later worked at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C.

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National Security Institute

Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute, and an Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the National Security Law & Policy Program and the nation’s first Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LL.M at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he also teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters, as well as a summer course in Padua, Italy with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and previously served as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2016 – 2019.

Jamil is also an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm; and serves on the advisory boards of IronNet Cybersecurity, a NYSE-listed cyber collective defense company; U.S. Strategic Metals, North America’s largest primary producer of cobalt, a critical mineral used in EV batteries, aerospace, and other national security applications; and 4iQ, a deep and dark web intelligence startup. Jamil also serves as an advisor to Duco, a technology platform startup that connects corporations with geopolitical and international business experts and Amber, a digital authentication and verification startup.

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The American Enterprise Institute

Frederick W. Kagan, author of the 2007 report Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, is one of the intellectual architects of the successful “surge” strategy in Iraq. He is the director of AEI’s Critical Threats Project and a former professor of military history at the US Military Academy at West Point. His books range from Lessons for a Long War (AEI Press, 2010), coauthored with Thomas Donnelly, to the End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805 (Da Capo, 2006).

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Institute for the Study of War

Kimberly Kagan is the founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War. She is a military historian who has taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale, Georgetown, and American University. She is the author of The Eye of Command (2006) and The Surge: a Military History (2009), and editor of The Imperial Moment (2010). Dr. Kagan has published numerous essays in outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Weekly Standard, and Foreign Policy. She co-produced The Surge: The Whole Story, an hour-long oral history and documentary film on the campaign in Iraq from 2007 to 2008.

Dr. Kagan served in Kabul for seventeen months from 2010 to 2012 working for commanders of the International Security Assistance Force, General David H. Petraeus, and subsequently General John Allen. Admiral Mike Mullen, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recognized Dr. Kagan for this deployment as a volunteer with the Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest honor the Chairman can present to civilians who do not work for the Department of Defense.

Dr. Kagan was congressionally appointed to the Syria Study Group (SSG) in late 2018. The SSG is a twelve-member bipartisan group mandated by Congress to make recommendations on the military and diplomatic strategy of the U.S with respect to Syria. The group released its final recommendations in September 2019, which include adjusting the U.S. military mission to meet the evolving ISIS threat, denying the Bashar al-Assad regime legitimacy, committing to expelling Iranian forces and proxies, and increasing the costs on Russia for its destabilizing role.

Dr. Kagan co-founded the Hertog War Studies Program in 2013. The program is an intensive 2-week program run by the Institute for the Study of War in Washington D.C. The program aims to educate advanced undergraduate students about the theory, practice, organization, and control of war and military forces.

Dr. Kagan previously served as a member of General Stanley McChrystal’s strategic assessment team, comprised of civilian experts, during his campaign review in June and July 2009. Dr. Kagan also served on the Academic Advisory Board at the Afghanistan-Pakistan Center of Excellence at CENTCOM. She conducted many regular battlefield circulations of Iraq between May 2007 and April 2010 while General Petraeus and General Raymond T. Odierno served as the MNF-I Commanding General. She participated formally on the Joint Campaign Plan Assessment Team for Multi-National Force-Iraq - U.S. Mission- Iraq in October 2008 and October 2009, and as part of the Civilian Advisory Team for the CENTCOM strategic review in January 2009. Dr. Kagan serves on the advisory board of the Vandenberg Coalition.

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Robert Kagan is the Stephen & Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. He is a contributing columnist at The Washington Post. His new book is “The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World” (Knopf, 2018). His previous book was The New York Times bestseller, “The World America Made” (Knopf, 2012).

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Center for Strategic and International Studies

Dr. Thomas Karako is a senior fellow with the International Security Program and the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he arrived in 2014. His research focuses on national security, missile defense, nuclear deterrence, and public law.

For 2010–2011, he was an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, working with the professional staff of the House Armed Services Committee and the Strategic Forces Subcommittee on U.S. strategic forces policy, nonproliferation, and NATO.

Karaoke earned B.A. in politics from University of Dallas and a Ph.D, in political science from Claremont Graduate University.

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Northwestern University

Ambassador Ian Kelly is Ambassador (ret.) in Residence at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He is a retired senior foreign service officer who last served as the United States Ambassador to Georgia, from 2015 to 2018. He previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from 2010 to 2013. Prior to his ambassadorships, Kelly held a variety of high-level roles at the U.S. State Department, including serving as the Department spokesman under Secretary Hillary Clinton and as Director of the Office of Russian Affairs. Before joining the State Department, he earned a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Columbia University.

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Catholic University of America

Michael Kimmage specializes in the history of the Cold War, in twentieth-century U.S. diplomatic and intellectual history and in U.S.-Russian relations since 1991. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Secretary's Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. His next book, The Decline of the West: An American Story, is forthcoming with Basic Books. It is a study of transatlantic relations and U.S.-Russian relations from World War I to the present.

Professor Kimmage has published three books to date: The Conservative Turn: Lionel Trilling, Whittaker Chambers and the Lessons of Anti-Communism (2009); In History’s Grip: Philip Roth's Newark Trilogy (2012); and Wolfgang Koeppen’s Journey through America (2012), a German-language travelogue published in 1959 and translated by Professor Kimmage.

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The American Enterprise Institute

Klon Kitchen is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he steers an enterprise-wide, interdisciplinary effort to understand and to shape the nation’s most important technology issues.

Prior to joining Heritage, Klon was National Security Advisor to Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska. Before his time on the Hill, Klon spent more than 15 years in the United States Intelligence Community.

Kitchen earned his B.A. in Theology and Philosophy from Bryan College and holds a degree in security strategy from National Defense University.

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Scalia School of Law at George Mason University

Eugene Kontorovich is one of the world’s preeminent experts on universal jurisdiction and maritime piracy, as well as international law and the Israel-Arab conflict. He joins the Scalia Law School from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.

His expertise is often sought out and quoted by major news organizations such the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR News, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, and numerous television and radio programs.

He attended the University of Chicago for college and law school. After law school, he clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

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McCain Institute

David J. Kramer is the Affiliated Senior Fellow at the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University. Kramer joined the McCain Institute as senior director for Human Rights and Democracy in November 2014. Before that, he served for four years as president of Freedom House. Prior to that, he was a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Kramer served eight years in the U.S. Department of State, including as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (responsible for Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus affairs as well as regional non-proliferation issues); and Professional Staff Member in the Secretary’s Office of Policy Planning; and Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary for Global Affairs.

A native of Massachusetts, Kramer received his master’s in Soviet studies from Harvard University and his bachelor’s degree in Soviet studies and political science from Tufts University.

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American Enterprise Institute

Paul Lettow is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on US foreign policy, US grand strategy, and strategic competition with China and Russia.

Before joining AEI, Dr. Lettow served on the National Security Council staff at the White House as senior director for strategic planning. In addition, he was senior adviser to the under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs in the State Department.

After serving in government, Dr. Lettow was deputy chief counsel for the US Chamber Litigation Center, where he directed a litigation program to promote the success of the US private sector. He was also a partner in the government regulation practice group at Jones Day.

Dr. Lettow has a JD from Harvard Law School, a DPhil in international relations from Oxford University (Christ Church), and an AB in history from Princeton University.

Flexport

Dr. Phil Levy is Chief Economist at Flexport where he leads qualitative and quantitative economic research informed by public policy data and proprietary data.

Before Flexport, Dr. Levy spent two decades researching and forming global trade policy. Previously, Dr. Levy served on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors as Senior Economist for Trade and as a member of the policy planning staff for the U.S. Department of State.

Levy holds a Ph.D in Economics from Stanford University.

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Georgetown University

Robert J. Lieber is Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University where he has previously served as Chair of the Government Department and Interim Chair of Psychology.

He is author or editor of seventeen books on international relations and U.S. foreign policy and has been an advisor to presidential campaigns, to the State Department, and to the drafters of U.S. National Intelligence Estimates.

He received his undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin and earned his Ph.D. at Harvard. In addition, he has been a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and Georgetown University’s Career Research Achievement Award.

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Institute for International Finance

Clay Lowery is the executive vice president for research and policy at the Institute of International Finance (IIF). Mr. Lowery was formerly a managing director at Rock Creek Global Advisors, vice president for international government affairs with Cisco Systems, and managing director for the Glover Park Group. Mr. Lowery served as the assistant secretary for international affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department from 2005 to 2009. He chaired the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the government committee that reviews international mergers and acquisitions that may affect national security interests.

During his fifteen years of U.S. government service, Mr. Lowery held positions with the U.S. Treasury Department—including Paris Club debt negotiator and the deputy assistant secretary for debt and development finance; the National Security Council—director of international finance; and the Millennium Challenge Corporation—vice president of markets and sector assessments.

Mr. Lowery received his B.A. from the University of Virginia (Phi Beta Kappa) and his M.Sc. at the London School of Economics. In 2009, he was awarded the Alexander Hamilton prize, the highest U.S. Treasury Department honor.

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Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He is a Senior Research Professor at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins, SAIS.

His previous government career includes service as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning from 2006–2009, where he helped craft the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review and 2008 National Defense Strategy. He served for 24 years as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, to include tours in Iraq and Kosovo.

He holds a B.A. in history and international relations from USC and an M.A. and Ph.D. in international affairs from SAIS.

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Ohio State University

Dr. Peter Mansoor, Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.), is the General Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair of Military History and a frequent media commentator on national security affairs.

He assumed this position in September 2008 after a 26 year career in the U.S. Army that culminated in his service in Iraq as executive officer to General David Petraeus, the Commanding General of Multi-National Force-Iraq, during the period of the surge in 2007-2008. Colonel Mansoor served in a variety of command and staff positions in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East during his military career.

Mansoor earned his B.S. from the United States Military Academy, where he graduated first in his class, holds an M.A. from The U.S. Army War College, and a Ph.D. in history from Ohio State.

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American Enterprise Institute

Michael Mazza is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he analyzes US defense policy in the Asia-Pacific region, Chinese military modernization, cross–Taiwan Strait relations, and Korean Peninsula security.

Mazza has contributed to numerous AEI studies on American grand strategy in Asia, US defense strategy in the Asia-Pacific, and Taiwanese defense strategy, and his published work includes pieces in The Wall Street Journal Asia, Los Angeles Times, and The Weekly Standard.

Mazza has an MA in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced and International Studies and a BA in history from Cornell University.

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Stanford University

Michael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995.

Dr. McFaul also is as an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a columnist for The Washington Post. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

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Atlantic Council

Andrew A. Michta is Director and Senior Fellow, Scowcroft Strategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the former dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. He holds a PhD in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University. His areas of expertise are international security, NATO, and European politics and security, with a special focus on Central Europe and the Baltic states.

His most recent book with Paal Hilde, The Future of NATO: Regional Defense and Global Security, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2014.

Michta is fluent in Polish and Russian and proficient in German and French.

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National Democratic Institution

The appointment of Derek Mitchell as NDI’s third president is a homecoming. Beginning in September 2018, he returned to NDI just over two decades after he departed the Institute in 1997, at the conclusion of nearly four years as Senior Program Officer for Asia and the former Soviet Union.

Since that time, Mitchell has had a distinguished career in and out of the U.S. government, in which he has witnessed the connection between democracy and international security.

From 2012-2016, Mitchell served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (Burma). He was America’s first ambassador to the country in 22 years. From 2011-12, he served as the U.S. Department of State’s first Special Representative and Policy Coordinator for Burma, with the rank of ambassador.

Prior to this appointment, Mitchell served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs (APSA), in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In that capacity, he spent six months as acting APSA Assistant Secretary of Defense, and was responsible for overseeing the Defense Department’s security policy in Northeast, Southeast, South, and Central Asia. For his service, he received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Distinguished Public Service in August 2011.

From 2001 to 2009, Mitchell served as Senior Fellow and Director of the Asia Division of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

From 1997 to 2001, he served as Special Assistant for Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Mitchell was the principal author of the Department of Defense’s 1998 East Asia Strategy Report, the last such report produced by DoD.

Mitchell began his work in Washington as a foreign policy assistant in the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) from 1986-88.

Most recently, Mitchell has been a senior advisor at the Albright Stonebridge Group, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as well as a lecturer for the Stanford-in-Washington program.

Mitchell has authored numerous books, articles, policy reports, and opinion pieces on international affairs. He is the coauthor of China: The Balance Sheet—What the World Needs to Know Now about the Emerging Superpower (2006), and China and the Developing World: Beijing’s Strategy for the 21st Century (2007).

Mitchell received a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Virginia. He was a visiting scholar at Peking University in 2007. He speaks Mandarin Chinese proficiently.

His wife Min is a former television journalist. They live in Washington, D.C., with their beloved dog Bernie.

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Dr. A. Wess Mitchell served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2017 to 2019. In this role, he was responsible for diplomatic relations with the 50 countries of Europe and Eurasia, as well as the institutions of NATO, the EU, and OSCE. At State Department, Mitchell played a principal role in formulating Europe strategy in support of the 2017 National Security Strategy, led the Interagency in building instruments to counter Russian and Chinese influence in Europe, and spearheaded new diplomatic initiatives for Central Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Western Balkans.

Prior to joining the State Department, Mitchell cofounded and served as President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Mitchell is the author of numerous articles and reports that have been translated into a dozen languages and appeared in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, American Interest, National Interest, Orbis, and Internationale Politik. He is the author of three books, including most recently Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies and the Crisis of American Power (with Jakub J. Grygiel) and The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire (Princeton University Press, 2018).

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The Hudson Institute

Tim Morrison is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, specializing in Asia-Pacific security, missile defense, nuclear deterrent modernization, and arms control.

Most recently, Morrison was deputy assistant to the president for national security in the Trump administration. He served as senior director on the National Security Council for European affairs, where he was responsible for coordinating U.S. government policy for 52 countries and three multilateral organizations. Prior to that post, he was senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense, where he coordinated policy on arms control, North Korean and Iranian weapons of mass destruction programs, export controls and technology transfers, and implementation of the Trump administration’s Conventional Arms Transfer policy.

Mr. Morrison has a B.A. in political science and history from the University of Minnesota. He also has a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School. He is an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, serving since 2011

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George Washington University

Professor Nau specializes in international relations and U.S. foreign policy. From 1981 to 1983, he served as senior staff member of the National Security Council, responsible for international economic affairs. He also served, between 1975 and 1977, as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs in the Department of State.

Nau is currently conducting research for Ronald Reagan: His Library and Ideas, a book that traces the materials that Ronald Reagan read over the years, long before he became president, that helped him formulate his understanding of politics, economics and foreign affairs.

Nat holds a B.S. in Economics, Politics and Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

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Brookings Institution

Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow, and director of research, in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, and American national security policy.

O'Hanlon was an analyst at the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1994. He also worked previously at the Institute for Defense Analyses. O’Hanlon was also a member of the external advisory board at the Central Intelligence Agency from 2011-12.

His doctorate from Princeton is in public and international affairs; his bachelor's and master's degrees, also from Princeton, are in the physical sciences.

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American Enterprise Institute

Danielle Pletka is a senior fellow in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she focuses on US foreign policy generally and the Middle East specifically. Until January 2020, Ms. Pletka was the senior vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. A regular guest on television, Ms. Pletka appears frequently on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

Before joining AEI, Ms. Pletka was a senior professional staff member for the Middle East and South Asia for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

She has an MA from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a BA from Smith College.

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Center for European Policy Analysis

Alina Polyakova is president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Prior to joining CEPA, Polyakova was the founding director of the Project on Global Democracy and Emerging Technology.

Dr. Polyakova is a recognized expert on transatlantic issues. She has written extensively on Russian political warfare, European security, digital authoritarianism, and the implications of emerging technologies to democracies. Her recent work at the intersection of digital technology and statecraft is particularly important at a time of great power competition.

Dr. Polyakova holds a Ph.D. and MA in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA in Economics and Sociology from Emory University. She is fluent in Russian and German.

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The Vandenberg Coalition

Ana Rosa Quintana-Lovett is currently the Senior Policy Director at The Vandenberg Coalition. Most recently served as the Staff Director for Western Hemisphere for House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX). In that capacity, she led the subcommittee staff and was Chairman McCaul’s principal advisor on Latin America, border security, and arms sales to the region. She played a key role in the drafting and bipartisan coalition building for several successfully enacted pieces of legislation. Ana also served as the lead Foreign Affairs Committee staffer for the Secure the Border Act, the first House-passed comprehensive border security bill in decades. Prior to her time on the Hill, she led the Latin America portfolio at The Heritage Foundation for nearly eight years. There she wrote policy studies and articles for a variety of outlets and was also a regular media contributor. She was formerly a National Security Fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Penn Kemble Democracy Forum Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy. She is a current Board Member for the Strategic Intelligence Program at Patrick Henry College.

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies

Dr. Samantha Ravich is the chairman of FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation and its Transformative Cyber Innovation Lab and the principal investigator on FDD’s Cyber-Enabled Economic Warfare project.

Samantha serves as a commissioner on the congressionally mandated Cyberspace Solarium Commission and as co-chair of the Artificial Intelligence Working Group of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board. She served as deputy national security advisor for Vice President Cheney, focusing on Asian and Middle East Affairs as well as on counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation.

Her book, Marketization and Democracy: East Asian Experiences is used as a basic textbook in international economics, political science, and Asian studies college courses. Samantha received her PhD in Policy Analysis from the RAND Graduate School and her MCP/BSE from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

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National Bureau of Asian Research

Nadège Rolland is Distinguished Fellow, China Studies, at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), an American private think-tank based in Seattle and Washington, D.C.

Her research focuses mainly on China’s foreign and defense policy, grand strategy, and the articulation of China’s vision for itself as a great power on the world stage.

Her 2017 book China’s Eurasian Century? Political and Strategic Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative is the first Western analysis to examine the strategic thought and drivers behind the BRI, based on Chinese language sources. She also authored “China’s Vision for a New World Order” (2020), and edited several multi-authored volumes, including “Securing the Belt and Road Initiative: China’s Evolving Military Engagement Along the Silk Roads” (2019), “An Emerging China-Centric Order: China’s Vision for a New World Order in Practice” (2020).

Her most recent project examines where the African continent fits in relation to China’s overall strategic vision and identifies the main instruments used by Beijing to achieve its objectives. “A New Great Game? Situating Africa in China’s Strategic Thinking,” published in June 2021, is the first of a series of reports she edited: “(In)Roads and Outposts: Critical Infrastructure in China’s Africa Strategy” (2022) and “Political Front Lines: China’s Pursuit of Influence in Africa” (2022).

Her articles and essays have appeared in a number of international publications, newspapers, and academic journals.

Prior to joining the NBR, Rolland served for two decades as an analyst and Senior Advisor on Asian and Chinese strategic issues to the French Ministry of Defense, for which she has been awarded the Medal of Honor.

She holds a MA in China studies (summa cum laude) from the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations and a MSc in strategic studies (summa cum laude) from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. She is also a National Taiwan Normal University alumna.

Harvard University

Stephen Peter Rosen is the Beton Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs.

He was the civilian assistant to the director, Net Assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Political-Military Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council, and a professor in the Strategic Department at the Naval War College. He participated in the President's Commission on Integrated Long Term Strategy, and in the Gulf War Air Power Survey sponsored by the Secretary of the Air Force.

He received his B.A in Political Science from Harvard College, and his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University

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Hudson Institute

Peter Rough is a senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at Hudson Institute. In that capacity, he writes and comments on US foreign policy and regularly briefs official delegations, news media, public intellectuals, academics, and business leaders from around the world. Mr. Rough is a regular commentator on major radio and television and speaker in public forums. While at the institute, he has been named a next generation leader at the Munich Security Conference, Atlantik-Brücke, the Center for New American Security, and the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies. He has also helped edit Hudson’s journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology.

From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Rough served as associate director in the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, where he helped coordinate political strategy and outreach to key stakeholders. He has also completed stints as a policy analyst at the US Agency for International Development, where he was staff briefer to Administrator Henrietta Fore, and as an advisor to US Army Special Operations Command, where he analyzed unconventional warfare doctrine for the commanding general’s Strategic Initiatives Group. In 2012, he was responsible for US-Russia bilateral relations as a member of the Romney for President Russia Working Group. In 2016, he served as a member of the Rubio for President Middle East Working Group.

Center for Strategic and International Studies

Daniel F. Runde is senior vice president, director of the Project on Prosperity and Development and Americas Program, and holds the William A. Schreyer Chair in Global Analysis at CSIS. A global thought leader and change agent, his work centers on leveraging U.S. soft power and the central roles of the private sector and good governance in creating a more free and prosperous world.

Mr. Runde has been recognized for influencing the debate on USAID-State Department relations, as an architect of the BUILD Act, and led the debate surrounding the role and future of the World Bank Group. Mr. Runde has also influenced thinking about U.S. economic engagement with Africa (of which he is in favor of much more) and domestic resource mobilization. Mr. Runde holds the Officer’s Cross in the Order of Isabel la Católica, a Spanish Civil Order.

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University of California, Berkeley

Daniel Sargent is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. A specialist in US foreign relations, he is the author of A Superpower Transformed: The Remaking of American Foreign Relations in the 1970s (Oxford University Press, 2014) and a coeditor of The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective (Harvard University Press, 2010). He is also the coauthor of a forthcoming W.W. Norton textbook that situates the history of the United States in a global context. A graduate of Harvard University, Sargent has held fellowships at the Olin Institute for Security Studies at Harvard and at International Security Studies at Yale University.

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Eric Sayers is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on Asia-Pacific defense policy and strategy and US-China technology policy. Mr. Sayers is concurrently a vice president at Beacon Global Strategies.

Before joining AEI, Mr. Sayers served as a special assistant to the commander at US Pacific Command, where he advised Admiral Harry Harris on strategic engagements and special initiatives in the Indo-Pacific theater. Earlier, as a professional staff member with the majority staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he managed the Asia-Pacific/Pacific Command policy portfolio and advised Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) on regional security issues. He has also worked on national security and defense policy issues for Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-VA), who was, at the time, chairman of the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee and later chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. Sayers has been widely published, including in The Hill, War on the Rocks, and Defense News. He has also written for several academic journals, including Armed Forces Journal, Naval War College Review, and Joint Forces Quarterly. He coauthored the report “Make China the Explicit Priority in the Next NDS” (Center for a New American Security, 2020).

Mr. Sayers holds an MSc in strategic studies from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and an MA and a BA in political science from the University of Western Ontario.

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American Enterprise Institute

Kori Schake is the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Before joining AEI, Dr. Schake was the deputy director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

She has had a distinguished career in government, working at the US State Department, the US Department of Defense, and the National Security Council at the White House. She has also taught at Stanford, West Point, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, National Defense University, and the University of Maryland.

Dr. Schake has a PhD and MA in government and politics from the University of Maryland, as well as an MPM from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. Her BA in international relations is from Stanford University.

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American Enterprise Institute

Derek Scissors is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on the Chinese and Indian economies and on US economic relations with Asia. He is concurrently serving on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission and as the chief economist of the China Beige Book.

Dr. Scissors is the author of the China Global Investment Tracker. Since 2008, in a series of papers, he has been chronicling the end of pro-market reforms in China and the resulting slide toward economic stagnation. He has also written multiple papers on the best course for Indian economic development.

Before joining AEI, Dr. Scissors was a senior research fellow in the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation and an adjunct professor of economics at George Washington University. He has worked for London-based Intelligence Research Ltd., taught economics at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, and served as an action officer in international economics and energy for the US Department of Defense.

Dr. Scissors has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, a master’s degree from the University of Chicago, and a doctorate from Stanford University.

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CURRENTLY UNABLE TO SPEAK DUE TO SERVICE AT DEPARTMENT OF STATE

David Schenker was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of Near Eastern Affairs in June 14, 2019. Prior to joining the Department of State, from 2006-2019, Mr. Schenker was director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

From 2002-2006, he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as Levant country director. In that capacity, he was responsible for advising the secretary and other senior Pentagon leadership on the military and political affairs of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.

Mr. Schenker attended the University of Vermont, University of Michigan, and The American University in Cairo.

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Project 2049 Institute

The Honorable Randall G. Schriver is Chairman of the Board at The Project 2049 Institute. Most recently, Mr. Schriver served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs from 8 January 2018 to 31 December 2019.

Previously, Mr. Schriver served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. From 2001 to 2003, he served as Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of State. From 1994 to 1998, he worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, including as the senior official responsible for the day-to-day management of U.S. bilateral relations with the PLA.

Mr. Schriver received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Williams College and a Master of Arts degree from Harvard University.

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Center for European Policy Analysis

Catherine Sendak is the Director of the Transatlantic Defense and Security program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Prior to this post, Sendak was the Vice President for Policy and Projects for Business Executives for National Security (BENS).

From 2018 to 2021, Sendak was the Principal Director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. In her role, Sendak led efforts on addressing national security priorities including great power competition with Russia and stability and security throughout Eastern Europe.

Before her time at the Department of Defense, Catherine was a Professional Staff Member on the House Armed Services Committee. She has over a decade of Capitol Hill experience, starting her career on the Senate Armed Services Committee before moving to the House in 2010. She served on the Full Committee Policy staff, conducting oversight of U.S. European Command and NATO, U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Northern Command, Department of Defense Counternarcotics and Global Threats programs, and Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster Assistance and Civic Aid.

KKR Global Institute

Vance Serchuk (New York) joined KKR in 2013 and is executive director of the KKR Global Institute, responsible for geopolitical analysis with particular focus on trends in defense, security, and emerging markets.

Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Serchuk served as the senior national security advisor to Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut). In this capacity, he worked on a broad range of international security issues, including Iran and Russia sanctions legislation, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Asia-Pacific strategy.

Mr. Serchuk is a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University, holds a JD from Yale Law School, and was a Fulbright scholar in the Russian Federation. He is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

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The Atlantic Council

David O. Shullman is senior director of the Global China Hub at the Atlantic Council, where he leads the council’s work on China. David’s own research focuses on China’s foreign policy and grand strategy, US-China relations, China-Russia relations, and the implications of China’s rise for global order and the future of democracy.

Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, David was Senior Advisor at the International Republican Institute, where he oversaw the Institute’s work building the resilience of democratic governments and institutions around the world against the influence of China, Russia, and other autocracies.

Dr. Shullman served for nearly a dozen years as one of the US Government’s top experts on East Asia, most recently as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia on the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). In this role David led the US intelligence community’s strategic analysis on East Asia, represented the IC in interagency policy meetings, and advised senior White House and Cabinet officials. Prior to joining the NIC, David was a senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. He has also been an Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

Dr. Shullman has offered testimony on China topics before subcommittees of both houses of Congress and publishes regularly in outlets including Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks and American Purpose. David’s analysis has been featured in the Financial Times, the New York Times, USA Today, and Politico, among others, and he has provided commentary for broadcast media outlets such as SkyNews, NPR, and Bloomberg Radio.

Dr. Shullman is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and served as an advisor on the Biden campaign. He earned his PhD in Political Science from UCLA, a MALD from the Fletcher School, and a BA from Georgetown.

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Business Roundtable

Ambassador Kristen Silverberg is Executive Vice President, Policy at Business Roundtable, where she leads the Policy team. She previously served as a Managing Director at the Institute of International Finance.

She served in the George W. Bush Administration as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union from 2008 to 2009 and as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 2005 to 2008. Ambassador Silverberg served in 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq for which she received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.

She holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a J.D. from University of Texas School of Law.

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Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Michael Singh is the Lane-Swig Senior Fellow and managing director at The Washington Institute and a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council.

During his tenure at the White House from 2005 to 2008, Mr. Singh was responsible for devising and coordinating U.S. national security policy toward the region stretching from Morocco to Iran, with a particular emphasis on Iran’s nuclear and regional activities, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Syria, and security cooperation in the broader Middle East.

Singh holds an M.B.A from Harvard University (Baker Scholar), and earned his B.A. from Princeton University.

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American Foreign Policy Council

Michael Sobolik joined AFPC as a Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies in September 2019. His work covers American and Chinese grand strategy, regional economic and security trends, America’s alliance architecture in Asia, and human rights. Prior to joining AFPC, Michael served as a Legislative Assistant in the United States Senate from 2014 to 2019. While in the Senate, Michael drafted legislation on China, Russia, India, Taiwan, North Korea, and Cambodia, as well as strategic systems and missile defense.

Michael is a graduate of Texas A&M University, where he studied political philosophy as an undergraduate. He also earned his Master of International Affairs degree in American grand strategy and U.S.-China relations at the Bush School of Government and Public Service.

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The Heritage Foundation

Thomas Spoehr serves as director of Heritage’s Center for National Defense where he is responsible for supervising research on matters involving U.S. national defense.

Prior to joining Heritage, Spoehr served for over 36 years in the U.S. Army, attaining the rank of Lieutenant General. He is an expert on national defense policy and strategy, and has testified before the U.S. Congress on defense strategy, budgets and equipment modernization. Spoehr’s articles and commentary have been published widely in national media and he is often called upon to provide expert commentary and analysis.

Early military service included operational assignments ensuring Army and joint forces were proficient in countering weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which consist of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. As one of the Army’s foremost uniformed experts in this area, Spoehr served as the Commandant of the Army’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear School, with the responsibility for the policy, training and strategy for this critical area. In the wake of the 2015 incident involving the shipment of live anthrax spores by Defense laboratories, Spoehr was asked by the Secretary of the Army to lead a Task Force which concluded in 2016 with the approval of a comprehensive regime of corrective actions to prevent future incidents.

Later in his Army career, Spoehr served in senior leadership positions in the Pentagon, responsible for charting the Army’s future year financial plans, developing equipment modernization strategies, and achieving business efficiencies and reform. Analysis and recommendations conducted by Spoehr were used by the Secretary of the Army and other senior leaders to reduce or eliminate military headquarters, reduce back-office costs, and streamline lengthy bureaucratic processes, saving millions of taxpayer dollars. He has published articles describing methods to make the military more efficient and effective, and is a widely requested speaker on these topics.

His operational experiences include service with combat units including the 82nd Airborne Division and the 1st Armored Division. Spoehr participated in Operation Urgent Fury (the invasion of Grenada) and in 2011 served as Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Forces Iraq in Operation New Dawn, where he successfully oversaw the safe withdrawal of all U.S. forces and equipment from Iraq ahead of schedule, one of the most complex and logistically intensive operations ever attempted by the U.S. military.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, a Masters of Arts in Public Administration from Webster University in St. Louis, MO, and a Master of Arts in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA.

The Brookings Institution

Angela Stent is senior adviser to the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and professor emerita of government and foreign service at Georgetown University. From 2004-06 she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. From 1999 to 2001, she served in the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State.

Stent publications include: “From Embargo to Ostpolitik: The Political Economy of West German-Soviet Relations, 1955-1980”; “Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, The Soviet Collapse and The New Europe”; “The Limits of Partnership: US-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century”, for which she won the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Douglas Dillon prize for the best book on the practice of American Diplomacy. Her latest book is “Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest” for which she won the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy’s prize for the best book on U.S-Russian Relations.

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International Republican Institute

Jan Surotchak first joined IRI in 1994 and currently serves as Senior Director for Transatlantic Strategy. Surotchak oversees IRI regional programming that focuses on the key threats to the alliance of democratic societies in the Transatlantic space: state-sponsored disinformation efforts to undermine state institutions and public confidence, weaknesses among traditional political parties and the rise of anti-establishment political movements and leaders, and growing engagement by authoritarian powers designed to drive the United States and its European allies apart.

From 2013 to 2018, Surotchak served as IRI Regional Director for Europe and managed programming in the Baltic States, Central and Southeastern Europe, and Turkey, as well as outreach efforts to partner parties in Western Europe and institutions at the European Union level. Prior to that, he was director of IRI’s regional program for Central and Eastern Europe, based in Bratislava, Slovakia, and working in 17 countries to strengthen political parties and government institutions.

From 2002-2003, Surotchak led an election-related grant-making program in Slovakia for Freedom House, after directing donor relations for the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation in Pennsylvania for two years. From 1995-2000, he directed the Foundation for a Civil Society’s Democracy Network Program in Bratislava, which provided support to Slovak nongovernmental organizations engaged in public policy formation and implementation. Prior to that, he served as coordinator of Washington programs for the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and as legislative assistant to U.S. Representative Don Ritter (PA-15).

Council on Foreign Relations

Ray Takeyh is Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His areas of specialization are Iran, political reform in the Middle East, and Islamist movements and parties.

Prior to joining CFR, Takeyh was senior advisor on Iran at the Department of State. He was previously a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Takeyh is, most recently, the author of The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty. He is the coauthor of The Pragmatic Superpower: Winning the Cold War in the Middle East and is the author of three previous books, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, and The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine: The US, Britain and Nasser's Egypt, 1953–1957. He has also written more than 250 articles and opinion pieces in many news outlets including Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

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U.S. Institute for Peace

Ambassador William B. Taylor is vice president, Russia and Europe at the U.S. Institute of Peace. In 2019, he served as chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv. During the Arab Spring, he oversaw U.S. assistance and support to Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009.

Ambassador Taylor also served as the U.S. government's representative to the Mideast Quartet, which facilitated the Israeli disengagement from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. He served in Baghdad as the first director of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office from 2004 to 2005, and in Kabul as coordinator of international and U.S. assistance to Afghanistan from 2002 to 2003. Ambassador Taylor was also coordinator of U.S. assistance to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He earlier served on the staff of Senator Bill Bradley.

Ambassador Taylor is a graduate of West Point and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and served as an infantry platoon leader and combat company commander in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and Germany.

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United States Congress (Ret.)

Mac Thornberry is “one of Congress’ brainiest and most thoughtful members on national and domestic security issues,” and said that he “has long been at the forefront of national security issues.” USA Today said Mac has “experience in Washington, a rare long view and a reputation for serious, thoughtful problem-solving.”

Since leaving Congress after 26 years, which included service as Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mac continues to work at the intersection of technology and national security with various companies and organizations.

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U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

Nury Turkel is the first U.S.-educated Uyghur-American lawyer, foreign policy expert, and human rights advocate. He was born in a re-education camp at the height of China’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution and spent the first several months of his life in detention with his mother. He came to the United States in 1995 as a student and was later granted asylum by the U.S. government.

Since June 2022, Nury has served as the Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, having been reappointed by Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in May of 2022 for a two-year term. In September 2020, Turkel was named one of the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World; and in May 2021, he was named on Fortune's List of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders.

Turkel is a respected opinion leader and a foreign policy expert primarily focusing on diplomatic, economic, and national security issues involving China, Central Asia, and Turkey. He is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In June 2021, the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative honored Nury with the first Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty.

Turkel received an M.A. in International Relations and a J.D. from the American University in Washington, DC. As an attorney, he specializes in regulatory compliance, federal investigation and enforcement, anti-bribery, legislative advocacy, and immigration. In addition to his professional career, Turkel has devoted his time and energy to promoting Uyghur human rights and supporting American and universal democratic norms.

In addition to his law practice and foreign policy work, Turkel has worked on human rights advocacy for more than two decades. He serves as the Chairman of the Board for the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), which he co-founded in 2003. Previously, he served as the president of the Uyghur American Association, where he led efforts to raise the profile of the Uyghur people in the United States, including organizing and leading the campaign that achieved the March 2005 release of a renowned Uyghur prisoner of conscience, Ms. Rebiya Kadeer. Since 2011, he has successfully represented a substantial number of Uyghur political refugees with their asylum applications in the United States.

In addition to his advocacy work in the United States, Turkel has engaged in policy and legislative advocacy in the European Union and the Australian Parliament. He served as an adviser to the past and present presidents of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), an organization that serves as an umbrella organization for the Uyghur community and advocacy groups promoting universal human rights. Turkel successfully represented Dolkun Isa, WUC’s current president, to restore his travel privileges to the United States. He has also assisted Uyghur refugees in the United States, Europe, and Turkey.

Turkel has published policy-oriented commentaries and op-eds in publications such as Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Foreign Policy, USAToday, The Hill, The Independent, and The Diplomat. Turkel has spoken at numerous policy forums, academic institutes, and human rights conferences, regarding the mass internment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in China. He has appeared on major media outlets, including CNN, BBC, Fox News, Al Jazeera, Australian ABC, Sky News, France 24, and TRT World.

He has testified before Congress, including most recently before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China in October 2019, speaking about Uyghur internment camps, and advocating a legislative response to China’s atrocities. Many of his recommendations have been incorporated into U.S. laws and pending bills relating to Uyghurs and China in Congress, including the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 (Public Law 116-145).

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International Republican Institute

Dr. Daniel Twining joined IRI as president in September 2017, where he leads the Institute’s mission to advance democracy and freedom around the world. He heads IRI’s team of nearly 700 global experts to link people and governments, motivate people to engage in the political process, and guide politicians and government officials to be responsive to citizens.

Previously, he served as counselor and director of the Asia Program at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, based in Washington, DC. As counselor, he served on the executive management team that governs GMF’s annual operations; as director of the Asia Program, he led a team working on the rise of Asia and its implications for the West.

He holds a BA with highest distinction from the University of Virginia and MPhil & DPhil degrees from Oxford University, where he was the Fulbright/Oxford Scholar from 2004-07. He has been a columnist for Foreign Policy and Nikkei and has served as an advisor to six presidential campaigns.

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Center for European Policy Analysis

Ambassador Kurt Volker is a leading expert in U.S. foreign and national security policy with some 30 years of experience in a variety of government, academic, and private sector capacities. He served as U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations from 2017 to 2019, and as U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 2008-2009. Ambassador Volker is currently Managing Director, International, and Co-Chair of the Advisory Board at BGR Group, which provides government relations, public relations, and business advisory services to a wide array of clients. He is also President and Founder of Alliance Strategic Advisors, LLC, and has previously served as a Director of CG Funds Trust and the Wall Street Fund.

From 2012-2019, Ambassador Volker was the founding Executive Director of The McCain Institute for International Leadership, a part of Arizona State University based in Washington, D.C. He remains a Senior Advisor at the Atlantic Council; a Trustee of the American College of the Mediterranean in Aix-en-Provence, France; a Trustee of the Hungary Initiatives Foundation; a member of the GLOBSEC International Advisory Board; and a member of the International Advisory Board of the U.S. Institute for Peace. He has taught Transatlantic Relations at The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, and is a member of that School’s Board of Advisors.

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Anduril Industries & American Enterprise Institute

Dustin Walker is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on US defense policy and strategic affairs in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Concurrently, Mr. Walker is working in the private sector on applications in high-end warfighting environments and software solutions for Joint All-Domain Command and Control.

Earlier, Mr. Walker served as a professional staff member on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, where he ended up as the lead adviser to Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) on the Indo-Pacific region, Europe, and NATO, including operations of US Indo-Pacific Command and US European Command. He played a central role in the committee’s oversight of the development and implementation of the National Defense Strategy focusing on force design and posture and high-end warfighting. He also led the development of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. He served as the national security spokesman and speechwriter for Sen. McCain from 2015 to 2017. Mr. Walker is the founding editor of RealClearDefense. He previously served in communications posts at the House Armed Services Committee and on Mitt Romney’s and Marco Rubio’s presidential campaigns.

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National Endowment for Democracy

Christopher Walker is Vice President for Studies and Analysis at the National Endowment for Democracy. In this capacity, he oversees the department that is responsible for NED’s multifaceted analytical work, which includes the International Forum for Democratic Studies, a leading center for the analysis and discussion of democratic development. The International Forum pursues it goals through several interrelated initiatives: publishing the Journal of Democracy, the world’s leading publication on the theory and practice of democracy; hosting fellowship programs for international democracy activists, journalists, and scholars; coordinating the Network of Democracy Research Institutes, a global think tank network; and organizing a diverse range of analytical initiatives to explore critical themes relating to democratic development. Prior to joining the NED, Walker was Vice President for Strategy and Analysis at Freedom House. Prior to Freedom House, he was a senior associate at the EastWest Institute, and program manager at the European Journalism Network. Walker has also served as an Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at New York University. He holds a B.A. degree from Binghamton University and an M.A. from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Walker has testified before congressional committees and appeared regularly in the media. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Policy.com, Barron’s, The Far Eastern Economic Review, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt, The Moscow Times, Politico.com, Journal of Democracy, and World Affairs. He is co-editor with Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner of Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Challenge to Democracy (Johns Hopkins University Press, March 2016).

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The Hudson Institute

Kenneth R. Weinstein is the Walter P. Stern Distinguished Fellow at Hudson Institute. From 2011 through 2020, Weinstein served as president and chief executive officer of Hudson. In December 2019, he became the inaugural holder of the Walter P. Stern Chair. He joined the Institute in 1991, was appointed CEO in June 2005, and was named president and CEO in March 2011.

From 2017 until 2020, Dr. Weinstein chaired the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the oversight body for U.S. Agency for Global Media, and was chair of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting and the Open Technology Fund. He previously was a member of the National Humanities Council, the governing body of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Dr. Weinstein serves on the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations, which provides counsel on trade agreements to the United States Trade Representative. In March 2020, he was nominated by President Trump to serve as U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Dr. Weinstein earned his B.A. in general studies in the Humanities from the University of Chicago, D.E.A. in Soviet and Eastern European studies from Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, and Ph.D. in government from Harvard University

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The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Kathryn Wheelbarger is the Rosenblatt Visiting Fellow at The Washington Institute, where her research focuses on U.S. security and defense policy in the Middle East. From 2017-2020, she served as acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. In that role, she oversaw policy issues related to the nations and international organizations of Europe, including NATO; Russia; the Middle East; Africa; and the Western Hemisphere.

From 2011–2017, Wheelbarger served as policy director and counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, where she specifically handled the committee's intelligence portfolio for Chairman John McCain (R-AZ); and as deputy staff director and senior counsel on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she performed budget and policy reviews of intelligence community programs, led investigations, and developed policy positions for Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI).

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Atlantic Council

Clete Willems is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. Mr. Willems is a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, where he advises multinational companies, investors, and trade associations on international economic law and policy matters. Until April 2019, Mr. Willems was Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economics and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. In this role, he was a key negotiator with foreign governments, including China and the European Union, and the President’s lead negotiator at the G-7, G-20, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum. Prior to joining the White House, Mr. Willems was a trade negotiator and WTO litigator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). He also worked as Legislative Director for Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI).

Mr. Willems graduated from the University of Notre Dame (BA) and Georgetown University Law Center (JD).

Brookings Institution

Thomas Wright is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution.

He is also a contributing writer for The Atlantic and a nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. He is the author of “All Measures Short of War: The Contest For the 21st Century and the Future of American Power” which was published by Yale University Press in May 2017. Wright works on great power competition, Brexit and the future of the EU, economic interdependence, Donald Trump's worldview, and U.S. foreign policy.

Wright has a doctorate from Georgetown University, a Master of Philosophy from Cambridge University, and a bachelor's and master's from University College Dublin.

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Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

Before joining CSBA, Toshi Yoshihara held the John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies at the U.S. Naval War College where he taught strategy for over a decade. He was also an affiliate member of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the war college.

Dr. Yoshihara has testified before the Defense Policy Board, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is the recipient of the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award in recognition of his scholarship on maritime and strategic affairs at the Naval War College.

He holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and a B.S.F.S. from the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

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Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute

Prior to his appointment at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, Mr. Zakheim practiced law at Covington & Burling LLP in the firm’s Public Policy and Government Affairs practice group, where he served as co-chair. Before joining the firm, he was General Counsel and Deputy Staff Director of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Zakheim’s previous experience includes serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, where he managed the department’s policies and programs related to the Iraq and Afghanistan coalition affairs.

Zakheim earned his B.A. in history from Columbia University, an M.A. in philosophy from University of Cambridge, and his J.D. NYU School of Law.

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