Speaker Biographies

John R. Bolton is a senior fellow at AEI, where he studies foreign policy and international organizations. Ambassador Bolton served as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations (UN) from August 2005 to December 2006. From May 2001 to May 2005, he was under secretary of state for arms control and international security. Prior to this, Ambassador Bolton was the senior vice president of AEI and also held a number of positions in public service, including assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, 1989–93; assistant attorney general, 1985–89; assistant administrator for program and policy coordination, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 1982–83; and USAID general counsel, 1981–82. From 1983 to 1985, Ambassador Bolton was an associate and then member of Covington & Burling, LLP. He is the author of Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad (Simon and Schuster, 2007).

Bruce Jackson is the founder and president of the Project on Transitional Democracies, an endeavor aimed at accelerating reform in democracies that have emerged since 1989 and promoting the integration of those states into European and transatlantic institutions. In 2004, Mr. Jackson became a member of the International Commission on the Balkans. From 1995 until 2003, he was the president of the U.S. Committee on NATO, a nonprofit corporation formed to promote NATO expansion and stronger ties between the United States and Europe. From 1993 to 2002, Mr. Jackson was vice president for strategy and planning at Lockheed Martin Corporation. Before that, Mr. Jackson was a strategist in the proprietary trading operations of Lehman Brothers. From 1986 to 1990, he worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in a variety of policy positions related to nuclear forces and arms control. From 1979 to 1990, Mr. Jackson served in the U.S. Army as a military intelligence officer.

Gary J. Schmitt is a resident scholar at AEI, where he is director of the 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. Previously, Mr. Schmitt was a member of the professional staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and served as the committee’s minority staff director. In 1984, he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the post of executive director of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board at the White House. Mr. Schmitt is the coeditor, with Thomas Donnelly, of Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources (AEI Press, 2007). Mr. Schmitt has written books and articles on a number of topics, including the American founding, the U.S. presidency, intelligence, and national security affairs.

View Event Details