Gary Schmitt

Friday, May 24, 2013

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).

Foreign and Defense Policy, Defense

SecDef Hagel’s opening address: Watch this space for more information

Gary Schmitt | April 4, 2013, 9:15 am

Yesterday, Chuck Hagel gave what amounts to his “opening address” as the new secretary of defense. As expected, it was full of arguments about the need for reforms in how the Pentagon goes about its business—some true enough, others less … read more >

Foreign and Defense Policy, Defense

Fiddling while the Pentagon burns

Gary Schmitt | March 29, 2013, 10:14 am

Much has been made of the fact that the new spending bill passed by Congress this past month has given the Defense Department both $10 billion additional dollars to help alleviate the shortfalls in its operations and maintenance accounts and … read more >

255

Foreign and Defense Policy

Is the CIA too focused on counterterrorism?

Gary Schmitt | March 21, 2013, 12:35 pm

According to a front-page story in the Washington Post today, the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board issued a report recently that argued the intelligence community had become too focused on supporting the war efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and against al … read more >

Photo Credit: Marine Corps Archives and Special Collection/Flickr

Foreign and Defense Policy, Asia

The Great War’s lessons for 2013

Gary Schmitt | February 6, 2013, 11:53 am

In yesterday’s Financial Times, Gideon Rachman wrote another one of his interesting columns, “The Shadow of 1914 falls over the Pacific,” noting some of the similarities in the current situation in the Far East and the international situation before World … read more >

Image Credit: Secretary of Defense (Flickr) (CC BY 2.0)

Foreign and Defense Policy, Defense

Hagel and the defense budget

Gary Schmitt | February 1, 2013, 2:15 pm

Senator Lindsey Graham’s skewering yesterday of former senator and prospective defense secretary Chuck Hagel over the latter’s comments about the “Jewish lobby” and its ability to “intimidate” members of Congress will certainly go down in the history of confirmation hearings … read more >

Also of Interest

Strategic gas

The IEA estimates that the United States will pass Russia as the world'd largest producer of natural gas, which may lead to a gas glut. Though the logical solution would be to export LNG to countries whose domestic resources are short and who are paying premium prices for new suppliers, the White House has been dragging its feet on the issue at the cost of imoprtant strategic and economic gains.

read more >
Defense sequestration: America's strategic cliff

American military preeminence has contributed to global security since the end of WWII. And while we know what today’s costs for keeping this global preeminence are, we are losing sight of what the much larger bill might be, should we lose it.

read more >
Forward progress: Global development in the 21st century

Join AEI and the Center for American Progress for a joint event featuring Dr. Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), with a conversation on the role of international development and the reforms needed to achieve results.

read more >