Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization
Washington Program on National Security
WAPONS
EXPERTS - 2022
Matthew Boyse
A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Matt Boyse serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary overseeing policy towards Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. He also oversees the Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues. Mr. Boyse joined the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs in September 2018 after serving as Acting Deputy Chief of Mission and Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs in Ottawa, Canada from 2015 until 2018. Mr. Boyse has had three assignments in Germany – as Political Advisor to the Commanding General, U.S. Army Europe, U.S. Consul General in Duesseldorf, and at Embassy Berlin. His other overseas tours were Kabul, Afghanistan; New Delhi, India; Warsaw, Poland; Moscow, Russia; Dhaka, Bangladesh; and London, United Kingdom. In Washington, he was Deputy Director in the Office of European Union and Regional Affairs and Executive Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs. Before joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Boyse worked at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, both in Germany. Mr. Boyse has a B.A. (Classics) from Haverford and an M.A. (Soviet and East European Affairs) from Columbia. He speaks German, Polish, and Russian.
Stephen Bryen, PhD
Dr. Stephen Bryen, Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy, has 50 years of experience in government and industry, having served as a senior staff director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Trade Security Policy, as the founder and first Director of the Defense Technology Security Administration, as the President of Finmeccanica North America, and as a Commissioner of the U.S. China Security Review Commission. Prior to his government career, Dr. Bryen was Assistant Professor of Government at Lehigh University. Dr. Bryen is the author of five books, numerous articles, and chapters in compendiums on technology and strategy. His books include: The Application of Cybernetic Analysis to the Study of International Politics; Essays on Technology, Security and Strategy and Technology Security and National Power: Winners and Losers. Dr. Bryen serves on the editorial advisory board of Common Defense Quarterly, and on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the U.S.-Israel Bi-national Science Foundation, which promotes bi-national research in basic science. For his work at the Defense Department, Dr. Bryen was twice awarded the Distinguished Public Service Medal.
Josh Carter
Josh Carter is the Military Legislative Assistant to Senator John Hoeven. Previously he was the Minority Staff Director, Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Josh first came to Washington from his native Kansas to serve on Senator Sam Brownback’s staff from 2003 to 2004, then returned from 2006 to 2011, first as National Security Advisor/Legislative Assistant and later as Legislative Director. In the interim two years, from 2005-2006, he was a Foreign Affairs Specialist in Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he developed and coordinated briefings on Iraq policy for the Secretary of Defense and senior DoD leaders. The previous year, from 2004 – 2005, as Legislative Affairs Coordinator Iraq Project and Contracting Office, he briefed Congressional offices on Iraq reconstruction strategy and contracting process. He holds an MA in International Affairs from American University.
Seth Cropsey
Following 15 years as a senior fellow and director of the Center for American Seapower at Hudson Institute, Seth Cropsey founded Yorktown Institute in 2022 and is the Institute’s president. He began his career in government at the U.S. Department of Defense as assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and subsequently served as deputy undersecretary of the Navy in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, where he was responsible for the Navy’s position on efforts to reorganize DoD, development of the maritime strategy, the Navy’s academic institutions, naval special operations, and burden-sharing with NATO allies. In the Bush administration, Cropsey moved to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to become acting assistant secretary, and then principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. Cropsey served as a naval officer from 1985 to 2004. From 1982 to 1984, Cropsey directed the editorial policy of the Voice of America (VOA) on the solidarity movement in Poland, Soviet treatment of dissidents, and other issues. Returning to public diplomacy in 2002 as director of the U.S. government’s International Broadcasting Bureau, Cropsey supervised the agency as successful efforts were undertaken to increase radio and television broadcasting to the Muslim world. Cropsey was previously a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of the Heritage Foundation’s Asia Studies Center. Cropsey is the author of the highly acclaimed books Safeguarding Defense Technology, Enabling Commerce (2002), Mayday: The Decline of American Naval Supremacy (2013), and Seablindness: How Political Neglect Is Choking American Seapower and What to Do About It (2017). His articles on national security and foreign policy have been published in Commentary, Foreign Affairs, The Public Interest, The National Interest, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Washington Times, and other national journals.
Sean Durns
Sean Durns is a Senior Research Analyst for the Washington D.C. office of CAMERA. With a background in the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, he worked for several think tanks and for a former high-ranking Pentagon official before joining CAMERA. His articles regularly appear in a variety of media outlets, including The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Jerusalem Post, and The Washington Jewish Week.
John J. Dziak, PhD
Dr. Dziak has served almost five decades as a senior intelligence officer and Senior Executive in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and in private consulting, with long experience in counter proliferation, counterintelligence, counter deception, strategic intelligence, and intelligence education. Dr. Dziak has served as DIA representative to DCI-led major espionage damage assessments, with special emphasis on U.S. critical technologies, and was U.S. representative to senior-level allied intelligence groups concerned with espionage penetrations and hostile special operations. Dr. Dziak received his Ph.D. from Georgetown University, is a graduate of the National War College, and is the recipient of numerous defense and intelligence awards and citations from DoD, DIA, CIA and the Director of National Intelligence, including the Defense Medal for Distinguished Civilian Service. He lectures at the National Intelligence University, has taught at the National War College, Georgetown and George Washington Universities, the Institute of World Politics, and lectures on intelligence, counterintelligence, and foreign affairs throughout the US and abroad. He is the author of the award-winning, Chekisty: A History of the KGB (1988), numerous other books, articles, and monographs, including "The Military Relationship Between China and Russia, 1995 – 2002" (2002) for AFPC, and is finishing a book on foreign counterintelligence systems. Dr. Dziak is co-founder and President of Dziak Group, Inc.
Brigadier General Michael Eastman
From May 2020 through February 2021, BG Eastman served as Commanding General of Train, Advise, and Assist Command (South) in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Prior to that, he was the Deputy Commanding General, 10th Mountain Division, Director of Joint Force Development and Design on the Joint Staff, and Director of the National Military Command Center. Prior positions included serving as the Director of the Army Futures Command Development Team, Chief of Staff of the Army Senior Fellow, and Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Army. BG Eastman commanded the 75th Field Artillery Brigade from 2013-2015 and was deployed to the United Arab Emirates and Jordan in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. His distinguished career includes: serving simultaneously as Deputy Brigade Commander for Civil Capacity, coordinating all military participation in economic, political, and civil reconstruction operations across 4 southern Iraqi provinces; as Commander of an 1800-Soldier Field Artillery Brigade deployed in support of Operation Spartan Shield, being responsible for all aspects of training, operations, logistics, and leader development while providing command and control over multiple elements deployed across the Middle East; and in Afghanistan, serving as Special Assistant to the Commanding General of the Office of Military Cooperation. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in International Relations from West Point, a Masters of Military Art and Science from the Command and General Staff College, and a Master of Science and PhD (ABD) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Political Science and Security Studies. His awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, and Bronze Star.
John Fonte, PhD
Dr. John Fonte is a senior fellow and director of the Center for American Common Culture at Hudson Institute. Hos book Sovereignty or Submission: Will Americans Rule Themselves or be Ruled by Others? , winner of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Paolucci-Bagehot book award for 2012 and a number-one rated Amazon best-seller in international law. He is co-editor of Education for America’s Role in World Affairs, a book on civic and world affairs education used in universities and teacher training institutes. His articles and essays have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Commentary, Orbis, National Review, The National Interest, The American Interest, The Claremont Review of Books, Policy Review, American Enterprise, Transaction, Academic Questions, American Legion Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, and many other publications. Dr. Fonte has been a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute where he directed the Committee to Review National Standards under the chairmanship of Lynne V. Cheney. He also served as a senior researcher at the U.S. Department of Education, and as program administrator at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). He is currently on the Board of the American Council for Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). He served on the foreign policy team of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in 2012. He has testified before Congress on immigration, assimilation, citizenship, citizenship naturalization, and civil rights issues. He has served as a consultant for the Texas Education Agency, the Virginia Department of Education, the California Academic Standards Commission, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania. He was a member of the steering committee for the congressionally-mandated National Assessment for Education Progress (NAEP) which issued the “nation’s report card” on civics and government. He served as principal advisor for CIVITAS: A Framework for Civic Education funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, and he was appointed by the general editor to write the chapter on The Federalist Papers. He has taught at the higher education and secondary school levels. He received his Ph.D. in world history from the University of Chicago, and his M.A. and B.A. in history from the University of Arizona.
Katherine Gorka
Katherine Gorka is a research fellow for outreach at The Heritage Foundation. From 2017 to 2019, she served as a senior advisor in the Office of Policy at the Department of Homeland Security, where she focused on strategies for prevention of terrorism and targeted violence and combatting use of the internet for terrorism and human trafficking. From June to August 2019, she served as the press secretary for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. As President of the Threat Knowledge Group from 2014 to 2017, Katie provided expertise and training on irregular warfare and terrorism to the FBI, US Army Special Forces, Marine Corps, and law enforcement. From 2009 to 2014, was the Executive Director of the Westminster Institute, which conducted research and education on threats posed by extremist ideologies.
Eric Hannis, LLD
Eric Hannis, a Senior Fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, is Director of Legislative Affairs for Textron, Inc. Till recently, he had been Director of Government Relations at Raytheon Technologies. Formerly, he was the principal defense advisor and Military Legislative Assistant to Rep. Randy Forbes. Hannis was also the Senior Military Legislative Assistant to Rep. Dave Weldon. As Vice President and head of the defense practice at The Russ Reid Company, a government relations firm, as well as Executive Director at Etherton and Associates, a defense consulting firm, Hannis represented both small and large defense companies on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon, as well as in other government agencies. He also currently serves as a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force Reserve and is certified as an International Affairs specialist by the Department of Defense. Having served over nineteen years in the military, including over nine years on active duty, which included assignments in international political-military affairs, operations planning, fighter aircraft maintenance and munitions operations, logistics, and Congressional affairs, his last active assignment was as the Country Director for Afghanistan and Central Asia for the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for International Affairs (SAF/IA). Hannis’ military awards include the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal, as well as the German Armed Forces Military Proficiency Badge, gold level. A graduate of Air Command and Staff College and a student in Air War College, Hannis earned a B.A. from Hamilton College and J.D. from Catholic University, specializing in international law.
Zebu Jilani
Zebu Jilani, a Pakistani American social entrepreneur and nutritionist, is the founder, Chair and President of the foundation the Swat Relief Initiative (SRI) strives to improve the lives of women and children in Pakistan through healthcare, education, economic empowerment and a sustainable environment. The granddaughter of Miangul Jahan Zeb (the last royal ruler of Swat), who ruled from 1949 to 1969 and was internationally renowned as a pioneer in rural development in Pakistan, Mrs. Jilani continues his legacy, having created a comprehensive health and nutrition seminar to help women and children in rural Swat take concrete steps to improve their health and prevent disease.
Paul Lieber, PhD
Dr. Paul Lieber is an award-winning scholar and practitioner in global strategic communication and mass communication influence, with over five dozen scholarly publications and presentations on these topics. COLSA Corporation and the Information Professionals Association’s Chief Scientist, he served as the Command Writer for two USSOCOM Commanders, likewise Strategic Communication Advisor to the Commander of Special Operations Command-Australia. Within academic environs, Dr. Lieber was a full-time member of the Graduate faculty at Joint Special Operations University, Emerson College, University of South Carolina, and the University of Canberra, respectively. Within these roles, he taught across the entire strategic communication and influence curriculum, with a research emphasis on social media-based persuasion and methodological design. He holds a Ph.D. in Mass Communication and Public Affairs, a Masters of Mass Communication from Louisiana State University, and B.S. in Broadcast Journalism from Syracuse University.
COL David Maxwell
COL Maxwell is a 30-year veteran of the US Army, after 20 years in Asia, primarily in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, leading organizations from the A-Team to the Joint Special Operations Task Force level. A 1980 graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio with a BA in Political Science, COL Maxwell has Masters Degrees in Military Arts and Science, as well as National Security Studies, from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, the School of Advanced Military Studies, and the National War College. A fellow at the Institute of Corean-American Studies (ICAS), he serves on the Board of Directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, the International Council of Korean Studies, the Special Operations Research Association, and the Small Wars Journal. His awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Joint Service Achievement Medal, the Army Achievement Medal, The Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Korean Defense Medal, the Overseas Service Ribbon, the Joint Meritorious Unit Citation, the Army Meritorious Unit Citation, the Philippine Legion of Honor, the Philippine Humanitarian Service Medal, the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation, the Expert Infantryman’s Badge, the Master Parachutist Badge, the Korean, Philippines, and Australian Parachute Badges and the Special Forces and Ranger Tabs.
Thomas Merrill, PhD
Dr. Thomas W. Merrill is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Government and Associate Director of the Political Theory Institute, all in the School of Public Affairs at American University He is the author of Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment (Cambridge, 2015), which won the Delba Winthrop Prize for Best Recent Work in Political Philosophy, and articles in the Review of Politics, Polity, and Perspectives on Political Science. He is also a co-editor of Apples of Gold in Pictures in Silver: Honoring the Work of Leon R. Kass (Lexington, 2010) and Human Dignity and Bioethics (Notre Dame, 2009). He was a research analyst with the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2007 to 2009.
Gina Cappo Pack
Mrs. Pack serves as Executive Producer of Manifold Productions, a film and educational company whose documentaries, most featured on PBS, have won many awards. These include: America's Political Parties, Fire from the Sun, Hollywood vs. Religion, Hollywood's Favorite Heavy, Rediscovering George Washington, Rediscovering Alexander Hamilton, Rickover: The Birth of Nuclear Power, and most recently the superb film Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words.
Roger Pilon, JD PhD
Dr. Roger Pilon holds the Cato Institute’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies, which he has held since it was established in 1998. He joined Cato as a senior fellow in October 1988 and, until 2019, served as director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, which he founded in 1989. He has also served as vice president for legal affairs, which he was named in 1999, and publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review, which he founded in 2001. Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of State, and the Department of Justice, and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In 1989, the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution. In 2001, Columbia University’s School of General Studies awarded him its Alumni Medal of Distinction. Pilon lectures and debates at universities and law schools across the country and abroad, and he testifies often before Congress. His writings have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Legal Times, National Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Stanford Law and Policy Review, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, CBS’s 60 Minutes II, Fox News, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, C‑SPAN, and other media. Dr. Pilon holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago, and a JD from the George Washington University School of Law.
Herman Pirchner, Jr., PhD.
In 1982, Herman Pirchner, Jr. became the founding President of the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC), a non-profit public policy organization headquartered in Washington, DC. Under his leadership, AFPC has hosted Washington events for hundreds of foreign officials ranging from the Prime Minister of Malta to the Prime Minister of Russia; conducted hundreds of briefings for Members of Congress and their staffs and, organized dozens of fact-finding missions abroad for current and former senior American officials. AFPC’s publication program includes sponsorship of articles, monographs, books and Congressional testimony. AFPC authors have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines including the Washington Post, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Jane’s Defense Weekly, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and National Review. In addition to his duties at AFPC, Mr. Pirchner directed the national security team advising the 2012 Presidential campaign of Newt Gingrich. Among his many publications is Pirchner’s prescient 2004 monograph, Reviving Greater Russia: The Future of Russia’s Borders with Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Ukraine. He is also the author of Post Putin: Succession, Stability, and Russia's Future (Rowman and Littlefield, May 2019), which is also available in Ukrainian and Russian editions. Before founding AFPC, Mr. Pirchner served in the U.S. Senate as Director of Legislation for Senator Roger Jepsen (R-IA) and Legislative Assistant to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
Max Primorac
Max Primorac is a Senior Research Fellow for International Economics and Foreign aid in The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center. He served in the United States Agency for International Development (USA(D) performing the duties of the Deputy Administrator, leading the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, and as Senior Advisor at the Middle East Bureau. As U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence’s Envoy to Iraq, he oversaw a multi-agency genocide recovery effort to assist religious minority returns. He also co-chaired the Agency’s executive council to counter China and represented the Agency at the President’s Management Council and during the George W. Bush Administration, served five years at the U.S. Department of State as senior advisor in the Office of the Secretary in support of the anti-Al Qaeda in Iraq surge campaign and as deputy director of the U.S. Government’s multi-billion reconstruction effort in Iraq. For two years he worked in Kabul, Afghanistan as a Deloitte Consulting senior advisor to the Afghan government on building out its provincial government. He founded and led two nonprofit organizations. He was President of the Institute for Stabilization & Transition advising governments on post-conflict strategies, and has advised global corporations in the telecommunication, construction, tourism, energy, and security sectors. He crafted investment portfolios for the Japan External Trade Organizations and Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. He has published in The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Christian Science Monitor, Devex, Foreign Policy, Journal for Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, and most US regional newspapers. His media appearances include CNN International, ABC Good Morning America, Fox TV News, EWTN, BBC Radio, National Public Radio, and C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.
Julie J.C.H. Ryan, PhD
Dr. Ryan is the CEO of Wyndrose Technical Group, having retired from academia in 2017. Her last position in academia was Professor of Cybersecurity and Information Assurance from the U.S. National Defense University. Prior to that, she was tenured faculty at the George Washington University and a visiting scholar at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). Dr. Ryan came to academia from a career in industry that began when she completed military service. Upon graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy, Dr. Ryan served as a Signals Intelligence Officer in the Air Force, and then as a Military Intelligence Officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency. Upon leaving government service, she worked in a variety of positions, including systems engineer, consultant, and senior staff scientist with companies including Sterling Software, Booz Allen & Hamilton, Welkin Associates, and TRW/ESL supporting a variety of projects and clients. She is the author of several books, including “Defending Your Digital Assets Against Hackers, Crackers, Spies, and Thieves” (McGraw Hill 2000), and a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS). At Wyndrose Technical Group, she focuses on futures forecasting and strategic planning with an eye on technology surprise and disruption.
Gregory Scarlatoiu
Greg Scarlatoiu is the Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) in Washington, D.C., having coordinated 28 HRNK publications exposing North Korean realities. He is a visiting professor at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, instructor and coordinator of the Korean Peninsula and Japan class at the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI), vice president of the executive board of the International Council on Korean Studies (ICKS), and a member of the advisory board for The Korea and World Politics Institute. Prior to HRNK, Scarlatoiu was affiliated with the Korea Economic Institute (KEI) in Washington, D.C. He has over six years of experience in international development, on projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. For fifteen years, Scarlatoiu has broadcast to North Korea for Radio Free Asia, and is a frequent commentator for CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and other media organizations. He has published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and also academic papers in volumes produced by organizations including The Hanns Seidel Foundation, The Asan Institute for Policy Studies, and the International Journal of Korean Studies. He has testified in Congressional hearings on North Korean human rights. Scarlatoiu holds an MA in Law and Diplomacy from Tufts University, and holds both a BA and MA from Seoul National University, in International Relations.
Marion Smith
Marion Smith is the President and Founder of the Common Sense Society, an international foundation that promotes civic engagement, entrepreneurship, and leadership among young professionals in the United States and Europe. From 2014 till 2021, he was the Executive Director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. A Phi Beta Kappa Wofford College graduate with a BA in Government & History, he has studied in England, France, The Netherlands, and Hungary, where he received a masters’ degree in International Relations from Central European University. He is also chairman of the National Civic Art Society and was previously a visiting fellow at the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation. His articles have appeared in various publications, including USA Today, CNN.com, The Hill, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and National Review.
Matthew Spalding, PhD
Matthew Spalding is the Kirby Professor in Constitutional Government at Hillsdale College and the Dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D.C., campus. He is the best-selling author of We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future, executive editor of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, A Sacred Union of Citizens: Washington’s Farewell Address and the American Character; Patriot Sage: George Washington and the American Political Tradition; and The Founders’ Almanac: A Practical Guide to the Notable Events, Greatest Leaders & Most Eloquent Words of the American Founding. Prior to joining Hillsdale, Dr. Spalding was vice president of American Studies at The Heritage Foundation and founding director of its B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics. He is a Fellow at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy and serves on the boards of the Steamboat Institute and the Philadelphia Society.
Charles “Cully” Stimson
Charles “Cully” Stimson is a widely recognized policy expert in crime control, national security, immigration, homeland security, and drug policy at The Heritage Foundation. Stimson is Deputy Director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, Manager of the National Security Law Program, Senior Legal Fellow, and Senior Advisor to the President. He has also served as the Chief of Staff at Heritage three times and ran the transition for three Heritage presidential changes of command. Stimson’s work in criminal law includes paper and a blog series on progressive “rogue” prosecutors; a comprehensive study on the constitutionality of life sentences for teen-age murderers entitled “Adult Time for Adult Crime;” a ground-breaking paper detailing the inner workings of the military justice system compared to its civilian counterpart; and more. His work on national security issues includes a paper on the 2001Authorization for Use of Military Force and its applicability to ISIS; a paper explaining FISA Section 702 and its importance in the collection of foreign intelligence; issues related to closing the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Cuba; a major paper on why repealing the 1991 and 2002 Iraq war authorizations is sound policy, and other papers. Before joining Heritage in 2007, Stimson served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs. He advised then-Secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates and coordinated the Pentagon’s global detention policy and operations, including at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan. An accomplished trial lawyer, Stimson worked as a prosecutor in San Diego, Maryland, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. A third-generation naval officer, Cully served in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) for 30 years, including three tours on active duty. During his active duty and reserve career, he served as a military defense counsel, prosecutor, as Deputy Chief Judge of the Navy-Marine Corps Trial Judiciary, and the Commanding Officer of the Preliminary Hearing Unit among other assignments. He retired from the Navy JAG Corps as a Captain on February 1, 2022, after 30 years of service. Stimson’s thousands of media interviews and appearances include Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, NPR and C-SPAN. He has been quoted by most major newspapers, including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and London Times. A businessman and educator by training, Stimson is Chairman of his family’s commercial real estate company in Seattle. Before 9/11, he was a Vice President at a New York-based global financial services and insurance brokerage firm where ran the private equity mergers and acquisitions D.C. operation. Stimson holds a law degree from the George Mason University School of Law, where he later taught as an Adjunct Professor of Law. He is a graduate of Kenyon College, where he was Captain of the men’s varsity soccer team and an All-Conference player. He also studied at Harvard and Exeter universities. An avid soccer player and triathlete, he serves as Chairman of the Board of the United States Soccer Foundation, the charitable giving arm of U.S. Soccer.
Dorothy Taft
Dorothy Taft, currently Executive Director of The Market Project, has more than three decades of experience in US and international policy to advance human rights protection, democratic governance and civil society program development, as well as issues related to trauma healing. Before that, she was Director of USAID’s Office of Democracy and Governance; Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff for the US Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Professional Staff for the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere; and Foreign Policy Legislative Assistant for a Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Piotr Trabinsky
As Alternate Executive Director for the Swiss-Polish Constituency at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), responsible for co-representing Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Poland, Serbia, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, Mr. Trabinsky reviews the IMF's policies and member states' economic developments. He holds an M.A. in Law from Warsaw University, and an Executive M.A. in National Security from The Institute of World Politics in Washington D.C. Prior to joining the IMS, he worked in the telecommunication and banking industry, achieving a managerial position in the global financial institution Banco Santander.
J. Michael Waller, PhD
Michael Waller is Senior Analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy. He holds a Ph.D. in international security affairs from Boston University and received his military training as an insurgent with the Nicaraguan contras. He was a co-founder of the Blue Team on China in the 1990s. For 13 years he was the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor of International Communication at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC. A former instructor with the Naval Postgraduate School, he is an instructor/lecturer at the John F Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg. The author or editor of books relating to intelligence, political warfare, public diplomacy, terrorism, and subversion, he publishes in Daily Beast, Daily Caller, The Federalist, Forbes, Insight, Investor’s Business Daily, Kyiv Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, New York Times, Reader’s Digest, Real Clear Politics, USA Today, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
Rand Waltzman, PhD
Before his last position as Senior Information Scientist at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, CA, he was the acting chief technology officer of Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute. Prior to that, he completed a five-year tour as a Program Manager in the Information Innovation Office of DARPA, where he created and managed the Social Media in Strategic Communications (SMISC) program and the Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales (ADAMS) insider threat detection program. Rand joined DARPA from Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories (LM-ATL), where he served as Chief Scientist for the Applied Sciences Laboratory that specializes in advanced software techniques and the computational physics of materials. Prior to LM-ATL, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, where he taught and performed research in applications of machine intelligence technology to a variety of problem areas including digital entertainment, automated reasoning and decision support and cyber threat detection. Before his professorship, he served as a DARPA Program Manager focusing on machine intelligence and image understanding. Rand has also held research positions at the University of Maryland, Teknowledge Corporation, and the Applied Physics Laboratory of the University of Washington.
Dakota L. Wood
Dakota Wood, the senior research fellow for Defense Programs at The Heritage Foundation, retired from the U.S. Marine Corps as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2005. He served as a strategic analyst for the Commandant of the Marine Corps and, later, while assigned to the Office of Net Assessment, the Secretary of Defense’s internal “think tank,” where he participated in a range of comparative analyses of military, technological, political, economic, and other factors governing the relative military capabilities of nations, with a specific focus on identifying emerging or potential threats and opportunities for the United States. Moreover, in his capacity as Strategist for the U.S. Marine Corps’ Special Operations Command, Mr. Wood was responsible for advising the Commander on strategic level guidance, policies, and operational concepts. Following retirement in 2005, Mr. Wood helped to organize and operationalize the National Biosurveillance Integration System, a Department of Homeland Security effort intended to provide national leadership with the earliest indications of a potential biological threat to the United States. From 2006 to 2011, Mr. Wood served as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments where he organized or materially contributed to numerous seminar-style wargames conducted for various Department of Defense sponsors. Wood graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in oceanography, and was named a distinguished graduate for his work in earning a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the College of Naval Command and Staff, U.S. Naval War College. He was also recognized for meritorious distinction by the Marine Corps’ School of Advanced Warfighting.
Jian Li Yang, PhD
Dr. Yang was born in Shandong Province, China and graduated from college at the age of 19. A rising star in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the 1980’s, he quickly became disenchanted with the corruption and duplicity he experienced in the communist system. He left China to pursue a career in Mathematics at University of California in 1986 when he was 23 years old. In 1989, his fellow Chinese students at Berkeley elected him to go back to Beijing in support of their counterparts in China who were demonstrating for democracy in Tiananmen Square. He returned to Beijing, joined the movement and witnessed the massacre of thousands by the guns and tanks of the CCP army including tanks running over protesters. This event changed his future. He narrowly escaped capture and returned to the United States to study democracy and continue his activism. In 2002, after completing his Doctorate in Political Economy at Harvard (earlier he had gotten a PhD in Mathematics from UC Berkeley), Dr. Yang returned to China to help the labor movement with non-violent struggle strategies. He was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison, kept in solitary confinement for a good part of the imprisonment. Following an international outcry for his release, including a UN Resolution and a unanimous vote of both houses of the United States Congress, Dr. Yang was freed in April of 2007. Immediately following his return to the U.S., he formed Citizen Power Initiatives for China, a pro-democracy movement committed to a peaceful transition to democracy in China. In March 2010, Dr. Yang co-chaired the Committee on Internet Freedom at the Geneva Human Rights and Democracy Summit. In December 2010 in Oslo at the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize awarding ceremony, he represented that year’s laureate, the imprisoned Chinese democracy leader Liu Xiaobo, who would die in the CCP regime’s custody on July 13, 2017. Dr. Yang is a frequent contributor to and interviewee by the international media, a panelist at hearings held by the US Congress, the European Parliament, the UK Parliament and the Taiwan Legislative Yuan. He has also been a speaker at various international forums on topics ranging from human rights in China, China’s democratization, China’s politics, ethnic relations in the PRC, cross-strait relations, and on US – China policies.
Program Director: Juliana Geran Pilon, PhD
Dr. Juliana Geran Pilon, Senior Fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute, teaches, writes, and lectures in both the United States and abroad. The author of over two hundred articles and reviews on international affairs, human rights, literature, and philosophy, she has made frequent appearances on radio and television. Her books include: The Utopian Conceit and the War on Freedom (2019), The Art of Peace: Engaging a Complex World (2016); Soulmates: Resurrecting Eve (2012); the anthology Cultural Intelligence for Winning the Peace (2009); Why America is Such a Hard Sell: Beyond Pride and Prejudice (2007), the anthology Every Vote Counts: The Role of Elections in Building Democracy, which she co-edited with Richard Soudriette (2007); The Bloody Flag: Post-Communist Nationalism in Eastern Europe -- Spotlight on Romania (1991); and Notes From the Other Side of Night (1979, 1994, 2014). Her writings have recently appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Law & Liberty, the Jewish News Syndicate, Academic Questions, InFocus, Starting Points, DocEmet Productions, The American Mind, and The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, among others. After receiving her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago, she held post-doctoral fellowships in international relations at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and at the Institute of Humane Studies, and subsequently taught at several universities including the National Defense University, George Washington University, and the Institute of World Politics where she was Director of the Center for Culture and Security. She currently teaches at American University, serves as faculty advisor for AU’s Alexander Hamilton Society chapter, and is a regular lecturer for the Common Sense Society in the U.S. and Europe. In the 1980s, she was a Senior Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation where she founded the United Nations Assessment Project which exposed the organization’s corruption and politicization. In 1988, as Executive Director and then Vice President of the National Forum Foundation, she oversaw a Visiting Fellows program for young professionals from the newly liberated Soviet bloc. During the 1990s she became Vice President for Programs at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), where she designed, conducted, and managed projects related to a wide variety of democratization projects. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Information Professionals Association, the Advisory Board of the Swat Relief Initiative, and the International Editorial and Advisory Board of the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs.
Program Assistant: Mason Goad
Mason Goad is a researcher with the National Association of Scholars, investigating the rise of Critical Theories in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Medicine (STEMM) under the guise of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE) as well as so-called "Anti-Racism." His undergraduate thesis, "A Quantum of Solace: How Quantum Computers Affect Cryptography and the Greater Implications for National Security," has recently been listed as among the "100 Best Quantum Computing Books of All Time," and is currently being revised for the release of a second edition. He has also written on the topic of TEMPEST technologies, and the integration of physics within the field of information security for The Cipher Brief, and his other writings have appeared with the Foundation for Economic Education, American Greatness, and Minding the Campus. Additionally, Goad is interested in information and psychological warfare, and, appeared in the American Intelligence Journal with his paper "Window Dressing: Applying the RASCLS Framework in Foreign Policy" in 2020.