Speaker Biographies

Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow in defense and security policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the coeditor, with Gary Schmitt, of Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources (AEI Press, 2007), and is also the author of The Military We Need (AEI Press, 2005), Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (AEI Press, 2004), and several other books. From 1995 to 1999, he was policy group director and a professional staff member for the Committee on Armed Services in the U.S. House of Representatives. He also served as a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is a former editor of Armed Forces Journal, Army Times, and Defense News.

Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar in defense and security policy studies at AEI. His most recent book, Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy (Encounter Books), was published in September 2006. Previously an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he is the author of The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801–1805 (Da Capo, 2006) and coauthor of While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). A contributing editor at The Weekly Standard, he has also written numerous articles on defense and foreign policy issues for Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Policy Review, Commentary, Parameters, and other periodicals.

General Jack Keane is senior managing director and co-founder of Keane Advisors, LLC, a private equity and consulting firm. He serves as a national security analyst for ABC News and speaks throughout the nation on national security and leadership. Still active in national security, General Keane conducted a personal assessment of the security situation in Iraq for senior defense officials in 2004 and 2005, and will conduct another assessment in 2006. He has been elected to the board of directors of MetLife, General Dynamics, and Allied Barton Security. He is a senior advisor to Kholberg, Kravis and Roberts, one of the nation’s largest private equity firms. He is also an advisor to the chairman & CEO of URS Corporation. He is a member of the Secretary of Defense’s Policy Board, a commissioner for one year on the Congressional Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, director of the George C. Marshall Foundation, director of the Knollwood Foundation, a member of the Executive Committee of the Pentagon Memorial Fund, chairman of the Terry Maude Foundation, and chairman of Senior Executive Committee of the Army Aviation Association of America. General Keane, a four-star general, completed thirty-seven years in public service in December 2003, culminating as acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army. As the chief operating officer of the Army for 4 1/2 years, he directed 1.5 million soldiers and civilians in 120 countries, with an annual operating budget of $110 billion. General Keane was in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and provided oversight and support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. General Keane is a career paratrooper and a combat veteran of Vietnam who was decorated for valor and spent much of his military life in operational commands employed in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. He commanded the famed 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and the legendary Eighteenth Airborne Corps, the Army’s largest war fighting organization.

Michael O’Hanlon is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, homeland security, and American foreign policy. He is a visiting lecturer at Princeton University, and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations. O’Hanlon has co-authored recent books with Richard Bush, A War Like No Other (2007), and with Kurt Campbell, Hard Power (2006). He and Ed Joseph also produced a 2007 Saban Center paper entitled “The Case for Soft Partition in Iraq.” He is the author of Defense Strategy for the Post-Saddam Era (Brookings Institution Press, 2005). He also recently completed The Future of Arms Control (Brookings Institution Press, 2005), coauthored with Michael Levi. In 2002, O’Hanlon and seven colleagues wrote Protecting the American Homeland and the subsequent Protecting the Homeland 2006/2007. O’Hanlon’s other works include Defense Policy Choices for the Bush Administration (Brookings Institution Press, 2002) and Defending America: The Case for National Missile Defense (Brookings Institution Press, 2001), coauthored with James Lindsay. His major articles include “Iraq without a Plan,” Policy Review (January 2005); “Clinton’s Strong Defense Legacy,” Foreign Affairs, (November/December 2003); and “A Flawed Masterpiece: Assessing the Afghanistan Campaign,” Foreign Affairs (May/June 2002). O’Hanlon was an analyst at the Congressional Budget Office from 1989–1994. He also worked previously at the Institute for Defense Analyses.

Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Her research areas include the Middle East (including Iran, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), terrorism, and weapons proliferation. While at AEI, Ms. Pletka has developed a conference series on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, a project on democracy for the Arab world, a roundtable of experts to discuss global energy security, and a project to develop bilateral relations between India and the United States. She recently served as a member of the congressionally mandated Task Force on the United Nations, established by the United States Institute of Peace. Before coming to AEI, she served for ten years as a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Ms. Pletka has also been a journalist based in Washington and the Middle East.

Gary J. Schmitt is a resident scholar at AEI, where he is director of strategic studies. Prior to coming to AEI, he helped found and served as executive director of the Project for the New American Century, a Washington-based foreign and defense policy think tank. Previously, he was a member of the professional staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and served as the committee’s minority staff director. He was appointed by President Reagan to the post of executive director of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board at the White House. Schmitt is the co-editor, with Thomas Donnelly, of Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources (AEI Press, 2007). He has written books and articles on a number of topics, including the American founding, the U.S. presidency, intelligence, and national security affairs.

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