Speaker Biographies

January 13, 2005

Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow in defense and security policy at AEI. He is the author of Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (AEI Press, July 2004) and AEI’s National Security Outlook. 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.

Steven Kosiak is the director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, where he performs research and analysis of defense spending trends, force structure and weapons systems costs, and the budgetary consequences of arms control measures, among other related defense budget issues. He is the author of CSBA’s annual budget analysis and contributes significantly to other publications on defense and security issues. He is frequently cited in major national news articles and has appeared on network television and radio news programs. He contributes editorial perspectives in such professional and public policy journals as The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Aviation Week and Space Technology, Armed Forces Journal, and Defense News. Prior to joining CSBA in 1991, he was a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information, with responsibility for researching and writing on a wide variety of defense issues. He has worked on Capitol Hill and in the Office of the Defense Advisor at the U.S. Mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy and budgeting, American foreign policy, and homeland security. He is also a visiting lecturer at Princeton University and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations. Among his latest books are Neither Star Wars Nor Sanctuary: Constraining the Military Uses of Space (2004); Crisis on the Korean Peninsula (2003), coauthored with Mike Mochizuki; and Expanding Global Military Capacity for Humanitarian Intervention (2003); Defending America: The Case for National Missile Defense (2001), coauthored with James Lindsay; and Technological Change and the Future of Warfare (2000). He also recently released an updated version of his latest defense strategy and budget book, Defense Policy Choices for the Bush Administration (2002). He has published articles and op-eds in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, Washington Quarterly, Survival, International Security, and several others. He has appeared on the major television networks more than 100 times since September 11, 2001, and also appears frequently on the CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and FOX networks. Before beginning his work at Brookings in 1994, he was an analyst at the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1994. He also worked previously at the Institute for Defense Analyses.

Loren B. Thompson is chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, where he oversees its program in security studies. He is a longtime advisor to high-tech companies, the federal government, and foundations. He conducts most of his for-profit activities through Source Associates, a consulting firm in northern Virginia that he heads. The areas on which he advises Source clients range from nonlethal weapons to industrial policy to military strategy. For twenty years, he has taught graduate-level courses at Georgetown University in military strategy, new technology, and the media. During the 1980s, he was deputy director of Georgetown’s security studies program, part of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. He has also taught classes at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He is widely quoted on military affairs in the national media. His commentaries have appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. He has also been interviewed by overseas media such as The Economist, Financial Times, and Al Jazeera.

Dov Zakheim is vice president of Booz Allen & Hamilton, a global strategy and technology consulting firm. From 2001 to April 2004 he served as under secretary of defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense. From 2002 to 2004 he was the Pentagon coordinator of civilian programs in Afghanistan. He also served as the Defense Department’s international "fund raiser" in support of Iraqi reconstruction. From 1987 to 2001 he was corporate vice president of System Planning Corporation, a technology, research and analysis firm based in Arlington, Virginia. He also served as chief executive officer of SPC International Corp., a subsidiary specializing in political, military, and economic consulting. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he served as a senior foreign policy advisor to then-Governor George W. Bush. From 1985 until March 1987, he was deputy under secretary of defense for planning and resources in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy). He held a variety of other Defense Department posts from 1981 to 1985. Earlier, he was employed by the National Security and International Affairs Division of the Congressional Budget Office. He is a member of the Defense Business Board, which he helped establish, and of the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel. The author of three books and monographs, and of numerous articles, he has lectured and provided media commentary on national defense and foreign policy issues domestically and internationally.

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