Speaker Biographies
August 18, 2005
Max Boot is a senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He is also a weekly foreign-affairs columnist for the Los Angeles Times, a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, and a regular contributor to the New York Times, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and many other publications. His last book, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (Basic Books) was selected as one of the best books of 2002 by the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and The Christian Science Monitor. It also won the 2003 General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award, given annually by the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation for the best nonfiction book pertaining to Marine Corps history. He is now writing his next book, a history of revolutions in military affairs over the past 500 years: War Made New: Four Great Revolutions that Changed the Face of Battle and the Course of History, which will be published by Gotham Books, an imprint of Penguin (USA). In addition to his writing, Mr. Boot is a frequent public speaker and guest on radio and television news programs, both at home and abroad. He has lectured at many military institutions, including the Army and Navy War Colleges, the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School, the Army School of Advanced Military Studies, West Point, and the Naval Academy. He is a member of the U.S. Joint Forces Command Transformation Advisory Group and of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting advisory board. In 2004, he was named by the World Affairs Councils of America one of “the 500 most influential people in the United States in the field of foreign policy.”
Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow in defense and security policy studies at AEI. He is the author of The Military We Need: The Defense Requirements of the Bush Doctrine (AEI Press, 2005), Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (AEI Press, 2004), and AEI’s monthly National Security Outlook. In February 2005, he was appointed by Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to a two-year term on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. 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.
General Michael W. Hagee is the thirty-third commandant of the United States Marine Corps. General Hagee graduated with distinction from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in engineering. He also holds a Master of Science in electrical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a Master of Arts in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College. He is a graduate of the Command and Staff College and the U.S. Naval War College. General Hagee’s command assignments include: commanding officer Company A, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines (1970); platoon commander, Company A and commanding officer Headquarters and Service Company, First Battalion, First Marines (1970–1971); commanding officer, Waikele-West Loch Guard Company (1974–1976); commanding officer, Pearl Harbor Guard Company (1976–1977); commanding officer, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines (1988–1990); commanding officer, 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) (1992–1993); commanding general, 1st Marine Division (1998–1999); and commanding general, I Marine Expeditionary Force (2000–2002). General Hagee’s staff assignments include: communications-electronics officer, 1st Marine Air Command and Control Squadron (1971); assistant director, Telecommunications School (1972–1974); training officer, 3d Marine Division (1977–1978); electrical engineering instructor, U.S. Naval Academy (1978–1981); head, Officer Plans Section, Headquarters Marine Corps (1982–1986); assistant chief of staff, G-1, 2d Marine Division (1987–1988); executive officer, 8th Marines (1988); director of the Humanities and Social Science Division/Marine Corps representative, U.S. Naval Academy (1990–1992); liaison officer to the U.S. Special Envoy to Somalia (1992–1993); executive assistant to the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps (1993–1994); director, Character Development Division, United States Naval Academy (1994–1995); senior military assistant to the deputy secretary of defense, Washington, D.C.; executive assistant to the director of central intelligence (1995-1996); deputy director of operations, Headquarters, U.S. European Command (1996–1998); and director of strategic plans and policy, U.S. Pacific Command (1999–2000). His personal decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal with palm, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit with two Gold Stars, Bronze Star with Combat “V,” Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal with one Gold Star, Navy Achievement Medal with one Gold Star, the Combat Action Ribbon, and the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal.
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hoffman is currently employed as a research fellow at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. He is responsible for conducting research projects to identify future security threats and potential technological or conceptual opportunities for the Marine Corps. He is also responsible for developing and evaluating future operational concepts and consulting on long-range strategic issues. He is a former Marine infantry officer, with active service from 1978 to 1986, and subsequent service in the Marine Corps Reserve, from which he retired in 2001. Mr. Hoffman previously served on the professional staffs of the Commission Roles and Missions of the Armed Services, and on the U.S. National Security Commission/21st Century. While serving that select group, he was the principal analyst and author of the Commission's homeland security and future conflict assessments. He has served on a number of Defense Science Boards, most recently the 2004 DSB on Post-Conflict Stability Operations. In addition to contributing to several government reports and more than 100 essays and articles, Mr. Hoffman is the author of Decisive Force: The New American Way of War (Praeger, 1996).
Mackubin Thomas Owens is associate dean of academics for electives and directed research and a professor of strategy and force planning at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He specializes in the planning of U.S. strategy and forces, especially naval and power projection forces; the political economy of national security; national security organization; strategic geography; and American civil-military relations. In addition to the core course on strategy and force planning, he teaches electives on the American founding, strategy and policy of the American Civil War, the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln, sea power and maritime strategy, strategy and geography, and U.S. civil-military relations. From 1990 to 1997, Mr. Owens was editor-in-chief of the quarterly defense journal Strategic Review and an adjunct professor of international relations at Boston University. Mr. Owens is a contributing editor to National Review Online, writing primarily on security affairs and the character of American republican government. His articles on national security issues have appeared in such publications as International Security, Orbis, Armed Forces Journal, Joint Force Quarterly, The Public Interest, The Weekly Standard, Defence Analysis, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Marine Corps Gazette, Comparative Strategy, National Review, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Jerusalem Post, St. Louis Lawyer, New York Post, and Washington Times. He had ten articles in the Wall Street Journal over a two year period. He is co-editor of the textbook Strategy and Force Planning, now in its fourth edition, for which he also wrote the chapters entitled "The Political Economy of National Security," "Thinking About Strategy," and “Strategy and the Logic of Force Planning.” He currently is working on a book for the University Press of Kentucky tentatively entitled Sword of Republican Empire: A History of US Civil-Military Relations.
Colonel Robert O. Work is a senior defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSIS). His areas of expertise include defense strategy, defense transformation, and maritime affairs. In 2001 he retired as a Marine colonel after twenty-seven years of service. His military occupational specialty was artillery. He commanded an artillery battery and an artillery battalion and was the camp commander of the Joint Artillery Training Facility at Camp Fuji, Japan. He has also served as a battalion S1 (adjutant), battalion S-2 (intelligence officer), S-3A (assistant operations officer), regimental fire support coordinator, and S-4A (assistant logistics officer) on artillery battalion staffs, and also as a regimental S-3A, S-3 (operations officer), S-4 (logistics officer), and executive officer. His key non-artillery positions included aide-de-camp to the commanding general of the U.S. Marine Corps Development Command, as well as enlisted force planner at U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters. In 1990, he became the head of the space plans and operation integration branch at U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters. After his tour as a battalion commander, he became the first director of the Strategic Initiatives Group, a strategic analysis and planning cell reporting directly to the commandant of the Marine Corps. From 1999 to his retirement, he served as the military assistant and senior Marine aide to Richard Danzig, the seventy-first secretary of the U.S. Navy.
Lieutenant General James N. Mattis is currently serving as the commanding general, Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, VA, and as the deputy commandant for Combat Development at U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters. As a lieutenant, he served as a rifle and weapons platoon commander in the 3d Marine Division. As a captain, he commanded a rifle company and a weapons company in the 1st Marine Brigade. As a major, he commanded Recruiting Station Portland. As a lieutenant colonel, he commanded 1st Battalion, 7th Marines—one of Task Force Ripper's assault battalions in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. As a colonel, he commanded 7th Marines (Reinforced). As a brigadier general, he commanded the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade and Task Force 58 during Operation Enduring Freedom in southern Afghanistan. As a major general, he commanded 1st Marine Division during the initial attack and subsequent stability operations in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Lieutenant General John Sattler has served as commander of the First Marine Expeditionary Force since September 12, 2004. Prior to holding this position, Lieutenant General Sattler served as director of operations, U.S. Central Command and Commander, Combined Joint Task Force in the Horn of Africa. He also held the position of the commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, since July 2001. Lieutenant General Sattler has held additional positions of leadership, particularly assuming duties as the director of the Public Affairs Division at Marine Headquarters in June 2000 and serving as deputy director for operations (Combating Terrorism) J-34. Lieutenant General Sattler’s military decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit with gold star, Meritorious Service Medal with gold star, and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal.
Michael Vickers is director of strategic studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), an independent public policy research institute located in Washington, DC. He is currently a senior adviser to the secretary of defense for the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review. From 1973 to 1986, Mr. Vickers served as an Army Special Forces officer and a Central Intelligence Agency operations officer, with extensive operational and combat experience in Central America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Central Asia. During the mid-1980s, he was the principal strategist for the largest covert action program in the CIA’s history: the paramilitary operation that drove the Soviet army out of Afghanistan and played a major role in ending the Cold War. His Afghanistan experience is described in the New York Times bestseller and soon-to-be-released major motion picture starring Tom Hanks, Charlie Wilson’s War. Mr. Vickers’s most recent publication is “The Revolution in War” (CSBA: 2004). He has served as a consultant to the Pentagon on topics such as the Global War on Terrorism and Force Transformation.
F. J. ‘Bing’ West served in Marine infantry in Vietnam and as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the Reagan administration. He is currently president of the GAMA Corporation, which designs war-games and combat decision-making simulations. West is the author of several books, including: Small Unit Action in Vietnam (Ayer Co., 1979); The Village (Pocket, 2003); The Pepperdogs: a Novel (Pocket, 2003); The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the US Marines (Bantam, 2003); and No True Glory: a Frontline Account of the Battle of Fallujah (Bantam, 2005). The March Up was awarded the Marine Corps Heritage prize for nonfiction, as well as the Colby award for military nonfiction. No True Glory will be published in late September. For Universal Studios, Mr. West is writing the screenplay about the Fallujah battle with his son, Owen, who served in Force Reconnaissance in Iraq. Mr. West regularly appears on The News Hour and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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