‘Re-engage the world’: Rethinking U.S. national security strategy

Eliot A. Cohen is the Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies and Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. After receiving his BA and PhD degrees from Harvard, he taught there and at the US Naval War College before coming to Johns Hopkins SAIS in 1990. His books include The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force (2017), Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battle along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War (2012), and Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (2003). He served in the U.S. Army Reserve, was a director in the Defense Department’s policy planning staff, led the U.S. Air Force’s multi-volume study of the first Gulf War, and has served in various official advisory positions. In 2007—2009 he was Counselor of the Department of State, serving as Senior Adviser to Secretary Condoleezza Rice, focusing on issues of war and peace, including Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a contributing editor at the Atlantic, and his commentary has also appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and on major television networks.

Eric Edelman, a Miller Center practitioner senior fellow, retired as a career minister from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2009 after having served in senior positions at the Departments of State and Defense as well as the White House. As the undersecretary of defense for policy (2005–2009), he oversaw strategy development as the Defense Department’s senior policy official with global responsibility for bilateral defense relations, war plans, special operations forces, homeland defense, missile defense, nuclear weapons and arms control policies, counter-proliferation, counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, arms sales, and defense trade controls. Edelman served as U.S. ambassador to the Republics of Finland and Turkey in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and was principal deputy assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney for national security affairs.

Michèle Flournoy is co-founder and managing partner of WestExec Advisors and former co-founder and chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where she currently serves on the board. From February 2009 to February 2012, Flournoy served as the undersecretary of defense for policy and was the principal advisor to the secretary of defense in the formulation of national security and defense policy, oversight of military plans and operations, and in National Security Council deliberations. In the mid-1990s, Flournoy served as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and threat reduction and deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy. She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award, both of which she received more than once. She has edited and authored several books, reports, and articles on a broad range of defense and national security issues and appears frequently in national and international media.