Speaker Biographies

Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar in defense and security policy studies at AEI. He is the author of Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq (phases I and II) and No Middle Way: The Challenge of Exit Strategies from Iraq, reports by the Iraq Planning Group 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, Mr. Kagan 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, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Policy Review, Commentary magazine, Parameters, and other periodicals.

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. Mr. O'Hanlon has coauthored 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) and The Future of Arms Control (Brookings Institution Press, 2005), coauthored with Michael Levi. In 2002, Mr. O'Hanlon and seven colleagues wrote Protecting the American Homeland and the subsequent Protecting the Homeland 2006/2007. His 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. He has contributed to Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, among others. Mr. O'Hanlon was an analyst at the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1994. He also worked previously at the Institute for Defense Analyses.

Kenneth Pollack is an expert on Middle Eastern political-military affairs, with particular emphasis on Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Persian Gulf region. He is currently a senior fellow and director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Mr. Pollack began his career as an Iran-Iraq military analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he was an employee from 1988 until 1995. During that time, he was the principal author of the CIA’s classified postmortem on Iraqi strategy and military operations during the Persian Gulf War. Mr. Pollack received the CIA’s Certificate of Distinction for Outstanding Performance of Duty for work both before and during the Persian Gulf War. He also twice received the CIA’s Exceptional Performance award, also for work related to the Persian Gulf War. Mr. Pollack has twice served on the staff of the National Security Council, as both director for Near East and South Asian Affairs and director for Persian Gulf Affairs. In this latter capacity, he was the principal working-level official at the White House for U.S. policy toward Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and the Gulf Cooperation Council States. Mr. Pollack’s most recent books are The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (Random House, 2004) and Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil War (Brookings, 2007) co-authored with Daniel Byman.

View Event Details