Speakers Biographies
January 17, 2006

Christopher DeMuth has been president of AEI since 1986. He was previously managing director of Lexecon Inc., an economics consulting firm; editor and publisher of Regulation magazine; administrator for regulatory affairs at the Office of Management and Budget and executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief in the Reagan administration; lecturer and director of regulatory studies at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government; an attorney with the Consolidated Rail Corporation and the law firm of Sidley & Austin; and staff assistant to President Richard Nixon. He is a director of the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Companies and two family companies. Mr. DeMuth's essays have appeared in The American Enterprise, Harvard Law Review, Yale Journal of Regulation, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and other publications, and are posted at www.chrisdemuth.com.

Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow in defense and security policy studies at AEI and editor of Armed Forces Journal. He is the author of The Military We Need: The Defense Requirements of the Bush Doctrine (AEI Press, 2005), Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (AEI Press, 2004), and AEI’s monthly National Security Outlook. In February 2005, he was appointed by Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to a two-year term on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Before coming to AEI, he served as the director of strategic communications and initiatives at Lockheed Martin and as deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century. From 1995 to 1999, he was the policy group director, as well as a professional staff member, for the Committee on National Security (now the Committee on Armed Services) in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Donnelly has also been the executive director of The National Interest, editor of the Army Times, and deputy editor of Defense News.

Michèle A. Flournoy is senior adviser in the CSIS International Security Program, where she works on a broad range of defense policy and international security issues. Previously, she was a distinguished research professor at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University (NDU), where she founded and led the university’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) working group, which was chartered by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Prior to joining NDU, she was dual-hatted as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and threat reduction and deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy. She was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1996, the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 1998, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award in 2000. In addition to three edited volumes, Flournoy has published numerous articles and reports on a variety of international security issues. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Strategy Group, the International Institute of Strategic Studies, and the Executive Board of Women in International Security. She is a former member of the Defense Policy Board and the Defense Science Board Task Force on Transformation.

Ryan Henry is principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy. In this role, he provides advice and assistance to the secretary of defense, deputy secretary of defense and the under secretary of defense for policy on national security policy, military strategy, and defense policy.

Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar in defense and security policy studies. Previously he was an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He is the coauthor of While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today (St. Martin’s Press, 2000), as well as numerous articles on defense and foreign policy issues in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Weekly Standard, Policy Review, Commentary, Parameters, and elsewhere. His first book, Finding the Target (Encounter Books), an examination of military transformation, is due to come out in early 2006.

Steven Kosiak is the director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a public policy research institute in Washington, D.C. His responsibilities include researching and analyzing defense spending trends, the costs of weapons systems, and budgetary consequences of arms control measures. His most recent publications include Analysis of the FY 2005 Budget Request (CSBA, 2004); One Year Later: The Cost of Military Operations in Iraq (CSBA, 2004); and Funding for Defense, Homeland Security, and Combating Terrorism since 9-11: Where Has All the Money Gone? (CSBA, 2003). He has also written for numerous publications, such as The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Aviation Week and Space Technology, Armed Forces Journal, and Defense News. Prior to his work at CSBA, Mr. Kosiak was a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information. He also served on Capitol Hill and in the Office of the Defense Advisor at the U.S. Mission to NATO.

Gary Quinlan arrived in Washington, DC, as Deputy Chief of Mission in late-June 2005 after serving four years as the Australian ambassador to Singapore. Mr. Quinlan joined the Foreign Service in 1973, and has directed the bureaus responsible for Australian relations with North America and North America. Mr. Quinlan headed the Australian Government’s Crisis Management Team for operations during the East Timor crisis in 1999. During the 1980s he worked extensively in international negotiations on oceans policy, sea law, maritime resources, and Antarctica, including work on the formulation on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Mr. Quinlan has also had extensive experience in the Australian political system while seconded from the Foreign Service as Chief of Staff to the Minister for Resources (1989-1990); the Minister for Industrial Relations (Labor) (1990-1993); the Minister for Trade (1993-1994); and to the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology (1994-1996). Mr. Quinlan’s overseas assignments have been to the Australian Mission to the United Nations in New York (1981-1985); the Australian Permanent Delegation to UNESCO, Paris (1979-1981); and the Australian Embassy in Dublin (1974-1977). He was attached to the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank in Washington DC in February-March 1984.

Michael Shoebridge is the Counsellor Defense Policy at the Embassy of Australia in Washington, D.C. In 2004, Mr. Shoebridge served in the Department of Finance and Administration, where he worked on defense capability assessment. Promoted to Senior Executive Service in 2002, Mr. Shoebridge served as the Director-General Minor War Vessels in the Defense Materiel Organization, where he was responsible for conducting negotiations for the Navy’s new Armidale Class patrol boats. He has also worked as the Chief Executive Assistant to the Secretary of the Department of Defence (2001); as Director Civilian Personnel Policy in the UK Ministry of Defence (2000); as Defense Advisor to the the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister Assisting the Minister for Defense (1998 to 1999); and as Department Liaison Officer in the Office of the Minister for Defence (1996 to1998).

Loren Thompson is chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a non-profit public policy research and education organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. His primary role at Lexington is to run the institute's national-security program. He is also chief executive officer of Source Associates, a for-profit consulting and technical services firm headquartered in McLean, Virginia. In the latter capacity, Mr. Thompson advises corporate clients on political trends, market conditions, and various managerial challenges. Mr. Thompson served previously as deputy director of the national security studies program at Georgetown University, one of the largest graduate-level security studies curricula in the world. He has also taught emerging technologies, military strategy, and media studies at Georgetown, Harvard, and other academic institutions for over twenty years. Mr. Thompson has published books on unconventional warfare and media-military relations. His doctoral dissertation at Georgetown traced the influence of early air power doctrine on U.S. nuclear strategy in the postwar period.

Michael Vickers is director of strategic studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), an independent public policy research institute located in Washington, DC. He is currently a senior adviser to the secretary of defense for the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review. From 1973 to 1986, Mr. Vickers served as an Army Special Forces officer and a Central Intelligence Agency operations officer, with extensive operational and combat experience in Central America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Central Asia. During the mid-1980s, he was the principal strategist for the largest covert action program in the CIA’s history: the paramilitary operation that drove the Soviet army out of Afghanistan and played a major role in ending the Cold War. His Afghanistan experience is described in the New York Times bestseller Charlie Wilson’s War—soon-to-be-released as a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks. Mr. Vickers’s most recent publication is "The Revolution in War" (CSBA, 2004). He has served as a consultant to the Pentagon on topics such as the global war on terrorism and force transformation.

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