Karlyn Bowman compiles and analyzes American public opinion using available polling data on a variety of subjects, including the economy, taxes, the state of workers in America, environment and global warming, attitudes about homosexuality and gay marriage, NAFTA and free trade, the war in Iraq, and women's attitudes. In addition, Ms. Bowman has studied and spoken about the evolution of American politics because of key demographic and geographic changes. She has often lectured on the role of think tanks in the United States and writes a weekly column for Forbes.com.

John Yoo has been a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law since 1993. He served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of the Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2001 to 2003, where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security, and the separation of powers. He also served as general counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1995 to 1996. He is the author of Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush (Kaplan Publishing, 2010), War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terror (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006), and The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11 (University of Chicago Press, 2005).

Frederick W. Kagan, author of the 2007 report Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, is one of the intellectual architects of the successful "surge" strategy in Iraq. He is the director of AEI's Critical Threats Project and a former professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His books range from Lessons for a Long War (AEI Press, 2010), coauthored with Thomas Donnelly, to the End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805 (Da Capo, 2006).

Gary Schmitt is the co-director of the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI and the director of AEI's Program on American Citizenship. Mr. 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 security work focuses on longer-term strategic issues that will affect America's security at home and its ability to lead abroad, while his work in the area of citizenship focuses on challenges to maintaining and sustaining a strong civic culture. His books include 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 two most recent books, to which he is also editor and contributing author, are The Rise of China: Essays on the Future Competition (Encounter Books, May 2009) and Safety, Liberty and Islamist Terrorism: American and European Approaches to Domestic Counterterrorism (AEI Press, 2010).