Mackenzie Eaglen Research Fellow for National Security Studies, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies
Mackenzie Eaglen specializes in defense strategy, military readiness, and the defense budget. She also focuses on the defense industrial base and the size and structure of the nation’s armed forces. In 2010, Eaglen served as a staff member of the congressionally mandated Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel, a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission established to assess the Pentagon’s major defense strategy.
James Jay Carafano, Ph.D. Deputy Director, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, and Director, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies
James Carafano is one of the nation’s leading experts in defense and homeland security. He is an accomplished historian and teacher as well as a prolific writer and researcher on a fundamental constitutional duty of the federal government: to provide for the common defense. His research focuses on developing the national security required to secure the long-term interests of the United States: protecting the public, providing for economic growth, and preserving civil liberties.
Peter Brookes, Senior Fellow, National Security Affairs, and Chung Ju-Yung Fellow for Policy Studies
Peter Brookes develops and communicates The Heritage Foundation’s stance on foreign and defense policy through his research and writing, media and public appearances, and congressional testimony. He is serving his third term as a congressionally appointed member of the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission. He previously served in the Administration of President George W. Bush as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs. In this post, he was responsible for U.S. defense policy for 38 countries and five bilateral defense alliances in Asia.
The Honorable Donald Rumsfeld
The 13th and 21st U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld currently chairs a nonprofit foundation with his wife, Joyce. The Rumsfeld foundation supports leadership and public service at home and the growth of free political and economic systems abroad by funding microfinance projects, fellowships for graduate students interested in public service, the development of linkages between young leaders from Central Asia and the Caucasus and the United States, and charitable causes that benefit the men and women of the U.S. armed forces and their families. Mr. Rumsfeld completed his second tour as Secretary of Defense in December 2006. A former naval aviator, he previously served as a U.S. Congressman, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, White House Chief of Staff, Special Presidential Envoy to the Middle East, and chief executive offi cer of two Fortune 500 companies. Secretary Rumsfeld led the Defense Department as America, in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and freed Iraq from the regime of Saddam Hussein. He also oversaw the reform and transformation of America’s military to make it better able to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Mr. Rumsfeld is a resident of New Mexico and spends time in Washington, DC, and Maryland.
Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D., President, The Heritage Foundation
Dr. Edwin J. Feulner has served as President of The Heritage Foundation since 1977. He was a founding Trustee of Heritage in 1973. As a result of Dr. Feulner’s vision and leadership, The Heritage Foundation has grown from a nine-person policy shop in rented office space to what The New York Times has called “the beast of [all think tanks], the almost mythical Heritage Foundation…the Parthenon of the conservative metropolis.” Dr. Feulner is widely credited with establishing The Heritage Foundation as the most dynamic and far-reaching public policy research organization in the world. In 1989, President Ronald Reagan honored Dr. Feulner by awarding him the Presidential Citizens Medal for his work as “a leader of the conservative movement.” More recently, Dr. Feulner was named one of the “Seven Most Powerful Conservatives in Washington” by Forbes magazine. He has also been featured on Fox News Sunday as its “Power Player of the Week,” named one of the “100 Most Influential American Conservatives” in 2010 by the London Daily Telegraph, and included in GO` magazine’s list of the “50 Most Powerful People in D.C.” and a 2010 Washingtonian magazine list of the “45 Who Shaped Washington.” Dr. Feulner has served as Chairman of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and President of The Mont Pelerin Society and The Philadelphia Society, of which he is a Distinguished Member. Dr. Feulner has received honorary degrees from 15 colleges and universities. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and his M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, pursued further graduate studies at the London School of Economics and Georgetown University, and received his B.S. from Regis University. He has been married for more than 40 years to Linda Leventhal Feulner. They have two children and three grandchildren.