Panelist Biographies
Dan Blumenthal joined AEI in November 2004 as a resident fellow in Asian studies. Previously, he was senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for international security affairs during the first George W. Bush administration. In that capacity, he led a team that formulated and implemented defense policies and programs toward, and for, these portfolio countries. Before his service at the Department of Defense, Mr. Blumenthal practiced law in New York and was as a research assistant at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Lieutenant General Christian Delanghe is Vice-President of Marechal Leclerc Foundation in Paris, France and contributes to US CREST activities (Center for Research and Education on Strategy and Technology) in Arlington, VA. His command experience includes serving as the Training and Doctrine Command General in Paris from 1998-2000; as the Multinational Division South-East Commander in Bosnia from 1997-1998; as the 2nd Armored Division Commander in Versailles from 1996 to 1997; as the Chief of Staff in the III Corps in Lille from 1995 to 1996; and as the 51st Air Defense Regiment (Roland-Mistral) Commander in Wittlich, Germany from 1987 to 1990. He has also served as an analyst officer in the military intelligence agency (1982-1985) and in the chief of operation division (1991-1995), where he was promoted to brigadier general. Lieutenant General Delanghe is a Saint-Cyr graduate from the 1983-1965 class.
Gary Schmitt is a resident scholar at AEI and he is also the director of AEI’s Program on Advanced 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. In the early 1980s, Dr. Schmitt was a member of the professional staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and, from 1982 to 1984, served as the committee's minority staff director. In 1984, he was appointed by President Reagan to the post of executive director of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board at the White House. He served in that position until 1988. Since then, he has held visiting fellowships at the National Interest, a foreign policy journal, and the Brookings Institution, served as Coordinator for the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence's Working Group on Intelligence Reform, and worked as a consultant to the Department of Defense. In addition, he has been an adjunct professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
Frederick W. Kagan joined AEI in May 2005 as a resident scholar in defense and security policy studies. Previously he was an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He is the coauthor of While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today (St. Martin’s Press, 2000), as well as numerous articles on defense and foreign policy issues in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Weekly Standard, Policy Review, Commentary, Parameters, and elsewhere. His book Finding the Target (Encounter Books), an examination of military transformation, will come out in early 2006.
