Speaker biographies

Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow in defense and security policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the coeditor, with Gary Schmitt, of Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources (AEI Press, 2007), and is also the author of The Military We Need (AEI Press, 2005), Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (AEI Press, 2004), and several other books. From 1995 to 1999, he was policy group director and a professional staff member for the Committee on Armed Services in the U.S. House of Representatives. He also served as a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is a former editor of Armed Forces Journal, Army Times, and Defense News.

Kevin A. Hassett is the director of economic policy studies and a senior fellow at AEI. He is also a weekly columnist for Bloomberg and National Review. Before joining AEI, Mr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor of economics and finance at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University. He was an economic adviser to the George W. Bush campaign in the 2004 presidential election, and was the chief economic adviser to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the 2000 primaries. He has also served as a policy consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury during both the former Bush and Clinton administrations. Mr. Hassett is a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation’s Dynamic Scoring Advisory Panel. He is the author, coauthor or editor of six books on economics and economic policy, including the AEI book on tax reform, Toward Fundamental Tax Reform. He has published scholarly articles in the American Economic Review, the Economic Journal, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Public Economics, and many other professional journals. His popular writings have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, the Washington Post, and numerous other outlets. His economic commentaries are regularly aired on radio and television, including recent appearances on the Today Show, CBS’s Morning Show, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Hardball, Moneyline, and Power Lunch.

Robert D. Hormats is vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1982 and became a managing director in 1998. Mr. Hormats served as assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs from 1981 to 1982, ambassador and deputy U.S. trade representative from 1979 to 1981, and senior deputy assistant secretary for economic and business affairs at the Department of State from 1977 to 1979. He served as a senior staff member for international economic affairs on the National Security Council from 1969 to 1977, where he was senior economic advisor to Henry Kissinger, General Brent Scowcroft, and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Mr. Hormats was a recipient of the French Legion of Honor in 1982 and Arthur Fleming Award in 1974. He has been a visiting lecturer at Princeton University and is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and the Dean’s Council of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Irvington Institute for Immunological Research; Engelhard Hanovia, Inc.; the Economic Club of New York; and Freedom House. Mr. Hormats’s publications include The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars, Abraham Lincoln and the Global Economy, American Albatross: The Foreign Debt Dilemma, and Reforming the International Monetary System. Other publications include articles in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, American Banker, and the Financial Times.

Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar in defense and security policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, a report 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, he 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, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Policy Review, Commentary magazine, Parameters, and other periodicals.

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