Tom Donnelly is the director of the Center for Defense Studies. He is the coauthor, with Frederick W. Kagan, of Lessons for a Long War: How America Can Win on New Battlefields (2010) and Ground Truth: The Future of U.S. Land Power (2008). Among his other recent books are Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources (2007), coedited with Gary J. Schmitt; The Military We Need (2005), and Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (2004). From 1995 to 1999, he was policy group director and a professional staff member for the House Committee on Armed Services. 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.
Gary Schmitt is a former staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He was executive director of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board during President Ronald Reagan’s second term. Mr. Schmitt’s work focuses on longer-term strategic issues that will affect America’s security at home and its ability to lead abroad. His books include The Rise of China: Essays on the Future Competition (Encounter Books, May 2009), of which he is editor and contributing author; Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources (AEI Press, 2007), to which he was a contributing author and editor with Tom Donnelly; Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence (Brassey’s, 2002), coauthored with Abram Shulsky and now in its third edition; and U.S. Intelligence at the Crossroads: Agendas for Reform (Brassey’s, 1995), a coedited volume to which he is a contributing author. His most recent book is Safety, Liberty, and Islamist Terrorism: American and European Approaches to Domestic Counterterrorism (AEI Press, 2010), of which he is editor and contributing author.
Dan Blumenthal is a current commissioner and former vice chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, where he directs efforts to monitor, investigate, and provide recommendations on the national security implications of the economic relationship between the two countries. Previously, he was senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia in the Secretary of Defense’s Office of International Security Affairs and practiced law in New York prior to his government service. At AEI, in addition to his work on the national security implications of U.S.-Sino relations, he coordinates the Tocqueville on China project, which examines the underlying civic culture of post-Mao China. Mr. Blumenthal also contributes to AEI’s Asian Outlook series.
Michael Auslin, AEI’s director of Japan Studies, was an associate professor of history and senior research fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University prior to joining AEI. He has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a Marshall Memorial Fellow by the German Marshall Fund, and a Fulbright and Japan Foundation Scholar. His writings on Japan and Japanese diplomacy include the books Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy (Harvard University Press, 2006) and Japan Society: Celebrating a Century, 1907-2007 (Japan Society Gallery, 2007).
Richard Cleary is a research assistant for the Center for Defense Studies and for the Program on Advanced Strategic Studies. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Washington and Lee University and has an MPhil in International Relations from Trinity College, University of Cambridge. He has interned for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and in the Personal Office of Senator Richard Lugar. Richard is fluent in French.
Michael Mazza is a senior research associate in Asian Studies in the Foreign and Defense Policy Studies department at AEI. He has worked previously as a policy analyst assistant at SAIC and as an intern at Riskline Ltd., and he has lived and studied in China. He graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University and has a Master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, where he studied strategic studies and international economics.
Lazar Berman is the program manager for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies. He received an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, with a concentration in military operations. Lazar served in the Israel Defense Force as an infantry officer in the Gaza area. He also commanded a platoon in the Bedouin Scout Battalion. His work has appeared in Small Wars Journal, the Huffington Post, and the reading list for the US Army COIN course in Taji, Iraq.
Daniel Vajdic is a research assistant in Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at AEI. His research interests include Russian and Iranian defense and security. Daniel holds a BA from Tufts University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) from The Fletcher School. In 2009, Daniel was a visiting researcher at the Carnegie Center in Moscow, Russia. He has interned at the U.S. Department of State, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Nixon Center, and The German Marshall Fund of the United States. Daniel is a 2009-2010 Boren Fellow. He speaks Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and is studying Farsi.
