February 17, 2005

Speakers Biographies

Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow in defense and security policy at AEI, and has just been named to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is the author of Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (AEI Press, July 2004) and AEI’s National Security Outlook. Before coming to AEI, he served as the director of strategic communications and initiatives at Lockheed Martin and as deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century. From 1995 to 1999, he was the policy group director, as well as a professional staff member, 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.

Klaus Peter Gottwald has been deputy chief of mission of the German Embassy since July 7, 2003. Before coming to Washington, Mr. Gottwald was a fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs of Harvard University. From 1998 to 2002, he was director for North America in the directorate-general for political affairs at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, where he also served as deputy spokesman for the former foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, and as deputy director in the arms control and disarmament division. Overseas, Mr. Gottwald served in London from 1993 to 1998, first on secondment to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office policy planning staff, and then as head of the press and public information department of the German Embassy. From 1987 to 1990, he worked at the political department of the German Embassy in Washington, was head of the press department of the German Embassy in Helsinki, and worked with the German UNESCO delegation in Paris. He joined the German Foreign Service in 1977. Previously, he worked as head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in the UNDP's regional office in Kaduna, northern Nigeria.

Simon Serfaty is the first holder of the Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He was director of the CSIS Europe Program for more than ten years and remains a senior adviser to the program. Mr. Serfaty is also a senior professor of U.S. foreign policy with the Graduate Programs in International Studies at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he was designated eminent scholar in May 2001. From 1984 to 1991, he was executive director of the John Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, and from 1978 to 1980, he was director of the Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research. He served as director of the Johns Hopkins Center of European Studies in Bologna, Italy from 1972 to 1976. He is the author of many books, including, most recently, La tentation impériale (2004), and Memories of Europe's Future: Farewell to Yesteryear (1999). Books edited by Mr. Serfaty include Visions of America and Europe: September 11, Iraq, and Transatlantic Relations (2004) and The European Finality Debate and its National Dimensions (2003).

Radek Sikorski is the executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative and a 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.

Adrian Wooldridge is The Economist's Washington correspondent. He covers politics and social policy. Before that he was The Economist's West Coast correspondent, Management correspondent and Britain correspondent. He is the coauthor of The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America (2004), The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (2003), A Future Perfect: The Challenge and Hidden Promise of Globalisation (2000), and Witch Doctors (1996), a critical examination of management theory.

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