Mackenzie Eaglen

Senior Policy Analyst for National Security, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies

Mackenzie Eaglen is one of the leading national security policy analysts in The Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for International Studies, focusing on national defense policy.  Her security studies specialties include force planning, military readiness and transformation, defense strategy, acquisition, and the defense industrial base.  Her homeland security writings focus on issues regarding budget, critical infrastructure protection, and science in support of national security.

Before coming to Heritage, Eaglen was the principal defense advisor for U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a senior member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee and the Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.  Eaglen also served over two years at the Pentagon, as a Presidential Management Fellow in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where she did research and analysis on defense resources and budgeting, strategic planning, program analysis and evaluation, Iraqi reconstruction efforts, and the U.S. defense industrial base, as well as speechwriting for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Prior to her fellowship, Eaglen was a national security analyst at the Association of the United States Army’s Institute of Land Warfare. 

Her editorials have appeared in the Army Times and Macon Telegraph, among other publications.  Eaglen’s paper, “A New Look at Readiness: Solving the Army’s Quandary,” which was published before 9/11/01, is currently taught at the U.S. Army War College.  She has served as a guest lecturer at the University of Georgia and participated in defense panels at the University of Pennsylvania and Security Industry Association. 

Eaglen received her M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.  She graduated from Mercer University, in Macon, Georgia, with a B.A. in International Affairs while serving in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps.