November 9, 2004
Speaker Biographies
Leon Aron, Ph.D. is resident scholar and director of Russian studies at AEI. He is the author of the first full-scale scholarly biography of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life (St. Martin's Press, 2000). Since 1998, Dr. Aron has written Russian Outlook, a quarterly essay on economic, political, social and cultural aspects of Russia's post-Soviet transition, published by AEI. He has contributed numerous essays and articles to newspapers and magazines, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times (London), Newsday, the National Interest, Post-Soviet Affairs, and the Times Literary Supplement. A frequent guest of television and radio talk shows, he has commented on Russian affairs for, among others, "60 Minutes," "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," "Charlie Rose," CNN International, C-Span, and NPR's "All Things Considered" and "Talk of the Nation."
Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow at AEI and author of AEI's National Security Outlook. Before coming to AEI, he served as the director of strategic communications and initiatives at Lockheed Martin and deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century. From 1995 to 1999, he was the policy group director for the Committee on National Security (now the Committee on Armed Services) in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Donnelly has also been the executive director of the National Interest, editor of the Army Times, and deputy editor of Defense News. He is the author of several books, including Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (AEI Press, 2004).
Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at AEI and served for many years as a member of Harvard University's Center for Population and Development Studies. He is also on the Board of Advisers of the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Statistical Assessment Service and is a member of the Environmental Literacy Council. He frequently serves as a consultant for the U.S. Census Bureau and other government organizations on such topics as demography, international development, and East Asian security. Mr. Eberstadt has published over two hundred studies and articles in scholarly and popular journals, including Foreign Affairs, the New York Review of Books, Commentary, The New Republic, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. His books include Prosperous Paupers and Other Population Problems; The End of North Korea; The Tyranny of Numbers: Mismeasurement and Misrule; Korea Approaches Reunification; and, most recently, Korea's Future and the Great Powers.
Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident scholar at AEI. An expert in Middle Eastern affairs, he focuses on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the former Soviet Union, as well as terrorism and intelligence. He is the author of Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey into Revolutionary Iran (1997) and a chapter on Iran in Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy (2000). He is also currently working on a book titled For Their Eyes Only. He is a contributing editor of the Weekly Standard. Mr. Gerecht was formerly the director of the Middle East Initiative for the Project for the New American Century and a Middle Eastern specialist for the Central Intelligence Agency. He is the author of The Islamic Paradox: Why Shiite Divines and Sunni Fundamentalists Are Our Best Hope for Advancing Democracy and Peace in the Middle East (2004, AEI Press).
Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (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. Before coming to AEI, she served for 10 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.
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI, focusing on Arab democracy and domestic politics in Iran and Iraq. Before returning to AEI, Mr. Rubin was a political adviser in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and an assistant on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He was a visiting lecturer on international relations and history at Hebrew University (Jerusalem) from 2001-2002 and at the Universities of Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok (Iraqi Kurdistan) from 2000-2001. From 1999-2000, he was a Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a visiting lecturer in history at Yale University.
Radek Sikorski is the executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative and resident fellow at AEI. He was Poland's deputy minister for foreign affairs from 1998 to 2001. As the country's deputy minister for defense in the first democratically elected government after the fall of Communism, he spearheaded Poland's drive to join NATO. From 1986 to 1989, Mr. Sikorski was a war correspondent to Afghanistan and Angola, contributing to the Spectator (London) and National Review. He is the author of Dust of the Saints: A Journey to Herat in Time of War (1989) and The Polish House: An Intimate History of Poland (1997). His photograph from Afghanistan received the World Press Photo Award in 1988. From 1981 to 1989, Mr. Sikorski was a political refugee in the United Kingdom.
View event details
