Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the house, is a senior fellow at AEI and visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is also the chief executive officer of the Gingrich Group, an Atlanta-based consulting firm. He has served as a member of the secretary of defense's National Security Study Group. In February 2001 Mr. Gingrich was named a distinguished visiting scholar at the National Defense University. Mr. Gingrich serves on the Board of Directors of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. A member of Congress for twenty years and speaker of the house from 1995 to 1999, Mr. Gingrich is credited as being the chief architect of the Contract with America, which led to the 1994 Republican congressional victory—the first GOP majority in forty years.

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick is a senior fellow and the director of foreign policy and defense studies at AEI and the Leavey Professor of Government at Georgetown University. She was the U.S. representative to the United Nations and a member of the cabinet and National Security Council during the Reagan administration. Mrs. Kirkpatrick has served on various commissions on national security, including the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (1986–1992), Defense Policy Review Board (1985–1993), and Presidential Commissions on Space and on Nuclear Weapons. She was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1985. Mrs. Kirkpatrick serves on the boards of the Chris Craft Corporation, Freedom House, Empower America, and several other nonprofit organizations. She is the author of numerous books and articles, including the forthcoming Good Intentions: Lost on the Road to the New World Order.

Michael A. Ledeen is a resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at AEI. An expert in contemporary history and international affairs, Mr. Ledeen contributes frequently to the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, National Review, and Commentary. During the Reagan administration, he was a consultant to the national security adviser, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the State Department and was a special adviser to the secretary of state. He is the author of twelve books, including Grave New World (Oxford University Press, 1985), which predicted the crisis in the Soviet Union five years before it occurred; Freedom Betrayed: How the United States Led a Global Democratic Revolution, Won the Cold War, and Walked Away (AEI Press, 1996); Machiavelli on Modern Leadership (St. Martin's Press, 1999); and most recently Tocqueville on American Character (St. Martin's Press, 2000).

Laurie Mylroie is the vice president of the Washington-based Information for Democracy and an internationally recognized expert on Iraq, terrorism, and the Middle East. Ms. Mylroie is also the publisher of Iraq News. She serves on the Editori al Board of the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin and on the Board of Advisers of the security firm Genii International. Ms. Mylroie is the author of Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America (AEI Press, 2000). Ms. Mylroie’s previous book, coauthored with Judith Miller, Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, was a number one New York Times bestseller and was translated into thirteen languages. She was an assistant professor in Harvard's Political Science Department before becoming an associate professor in the Strategy Department at the U.S. Naval War College. Subsequently she was a member of the staff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

David Wurmser is a research fellow at AEI. Mr. Wurmser has been the director of the Research in Strategy and Politics Program at the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in Washington, D.C. From 1994 to 1996, he was the director of institutional grants at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 1988 to 1994, he was a project officer at the U.S. Institute for Peace. His most recent book, Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, was published by the AEI Press in 1998. Mr. Wurmser has also published a study on Israel's army entitled "Why Israel Wins Battles but Loses the Peace" (April 1998). His numerous articles have appeared in USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the New Republic, the Middle East Quarterly, and SAIS Review.