Speaker Biographies
Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow in defense and security policy studies at AEI. He is the coeditor, with Gary J. Schmitt, of Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources (AEI Press, 2007), and he 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 House Armed Services Committee. Mr. Donnelly 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.
Husain Haqqani is an associate professor of international relations at Boston University. He has served as an advisor to Pakistani prime ministers Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Nawaz Sharif, and Benazir Bhutto. From 1992 to 1993, he was Pakistan's ambassador to Sri Lanka. He came to the United States in 2002 as a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Ambassador Haqqani has contributed to numerous international publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, Foreign Policy, and the Financial Times. He regularly comments on Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Islamic politics and extremism and has written and spoken extensively on U.S. relations with the Muslim world. His book, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military, was published in 2005.
Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar in defense and security policy studies at AEI. He is the author of Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq (phases I and II) and No Middle Way: The Challenge of Exit Strategies from Iraq, reports 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, Mr. Kagan 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, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Policy Review, Commentary magazine, Parameters, and other periodicals.
Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, homeland security, and American foreign policy. He is a visiting lecturer at Princeton University and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. O'Hanlon has coauthored recent books with Richard Bush (A War Like No Other, 2007) and with Kurt Campbell (Hard Power, 2006). He and Ed Joseph also produced a 2007 Saban Center paper entitled "The Case for Soft Partition in Iraq." He is the author of Defense Strategy for the Post-Saddam Era (Brookings Institution Press, 2005) and The Future of Arms Control (Brookings Institution Press, 2005), coauthored with Michael Levi. In 2002, Mr. O'Hanlon and seven colleagues wrote Protecting the American Homeland and the subsequent Protecting the Homeland 2006/2007. His other works include Defense Policy Choices for the Bush Administration (Brookings Institution Press, 2002) and Defending America: The Case for National Missile Defense (Brookings Institution Press, 2001), coauthored with James Lindsay. He has contributed to Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, among others. Mr. O'Hanlon was an analyst at the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1994. He also worked previously at the Institute for Defense Analyses.
Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at 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. She recently served as a member of the congressionally mandated Task Force on the United Nations, established by the United States Institute of Peace. Before coming to AEI, she served for ten 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.
