Faculty & Speakers

David Barton
Program Director
Since 2009, the U.S. foreign policy summer program has been led by Professor David Barton. Professor Barton has thirty years of professional experience in national security and foreign policy, working with the United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, and the State Department. In 2002 he led an investigation team and developed the final report for the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on the terrorist events of September 11, 2001. From 2003 to 2005 he worked with the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. During 2006 and 2007 Professor Barton directed a project at the National Academy of Public Administration focused on aspects of intelligence work and its relationship to the intelligence community and to state and local law enforcement. Professor Barton brings a high level of practical insight to the course topics and his contacts in the area serve as a great asset to the program.

Guest speakers each summer will vary, based on availability and the changing shape of U.S. foreign policy. In 2012, guest speakers included the following:

Michael Brown
Dean, Elliott School of International Affairs
Michael E. Brown is the Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs and Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at The George Washington University. From 1998 to 2005, Dr. Brown was on the faculty of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University and was the founding director of Georgetown's Center for Peace and Security Studies and Director of the M.A. program in Security Studies. From 1994 to 1998, he was Associate Director of the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. From 1988 to 1994, he was a member of the Directing Staff and Senior Fellow in U.S. Security Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Dr. Brown has been co-editor of the journal International Security (1994-2006) and now serves on the journal's editorial board. He was Editor of the journal Survival from 1991 to 1994. Dr. Brown is the author of Flying Blind: The Politics of the U.S. Strategic Bomber Program, which won the Edgar Furniss National Security Book Award. He is the editor of Ethnic Conflict and International Security, The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict, and Grave New World: Security Challenges in the 21st Century. He is co-editor of The Costs of Conflict, Government Policies and Ethnic Relations in Asia and the Pacific, Fighting Words: Language Policy and Ethnic Conflict in Asia, and fourteen International Security readers.

Richard Bush
Director, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, Brookings Institute
Richard Bush came to Brookings in July 2002, after serving almost five years as the chairman and managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the mechanism through which the United States Government conducts substantive relations with Taiwan in the absence of diplomatic relations. Dr. Bush began his professional career in 1977 with the China Council of The Asia Society. In July 1983 he became a staff consultant on the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs. In January 1993 he moved up to the full committee, where he worked on Asia issues and served as liaison with Democratic Members. In July 1995, he became National Intelligence Officer for East Asia and a member of the National Intelligence Council. Richard Bush received his undergraduate education at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. He did his graduate work in political science at Columbia University, getting an M.A. in 1973 and his Ph.D. in 1978. He is author of a number of articles on U.S. relations with China and Taiwan, and major recent papers include "The Challenge of a Nuclear North Korea: Dark Clouds, Only One Silver Lining" (2010) and "The U.S. Policy of Extended Deterrence in East Asia" (2011). He is author of At Cross Purposes, a book of essays on the history of America's relations with Taiwan published in March 2004 by M.E. Sharpe; and of Untying the Knot, a book on cross-Strait political relations published by the Brookings Institution Press in July 2005. Dr. Bush co-wrote A War Like No Other: The Truth About China's Challenge to America (Wiley, 2007), which examines the challenges that the United States faces in avoiding conflict and developing its relationship with China, with Brookings scholar Michael O'Hanlon. His latest book, Perils of Proximity: China-Japan Security Relations, was published by the Brookings Institution Press in October 2010. He is currently working on a book about the future of Taiwan-China relations and implications for United States policy.

Mickey Edwards
Director, Aspen Institute-Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership Vice President
Mickey Edwards, a lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, was a Republican member of Congress from Oklahoma for 16 years (1977–92). He was a member of the House Republican leadership and served on the House Budget and Appropriations committees. Since leaving the Congress he has taught at Harvard, Georgetown, George Washington and Princeton universities and has chaired various task forces for the Constitution Project, the Brookings Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition, he is currently an advisor to the U.S. Department of State and a member of the Princeton Project on National Security. He is the author of Reclaiming Conservatism and has been a regular political commentator on NPR's All Things Considered. His newspaper columns have appeared in the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, for which he has been a regular weekly columnist, and frequently in such other publications as The New York Times, the Washington Post, Boston Globe, San Francisco Examiner, Miami Herald and the Wall Street Journal.

Chuck Hagel
former U.S. Senator, current Chairman of the Atlantic Council
Hagel served two terms in the United States Senate (1997–2009) representing the state of Nebraska. While in the Senate, Hagel was a senior member of the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; and Intelligence. He chaired the subcommittees on International Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion and International Trade and Finance, and Securities. Hagel also served as the Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and the Senate Climate Change Observer Group. Chuck Hagel is currently a Distinguished Professor at Georgetown University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He serves on the Boards of Directors of Chevron Corporation; Zurich's Holding Company of America; the Advisory Boards of Gallup, Deutsche Bank America and Corsair Capital. He also serves as Co-Chairman of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, is a member of the Secretary of Defense's Policy Board, and the Secretary of Energy's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.

Hagel is the author of America: Our Next Chapter, an examination of the current state of the United States that provides substantial proposals for the challenges of the 21st century. Hagel served in Vietnam with his brother Tom in 1968. They served side by side as infantry squad leaders with the U.S. Army's 9th Infantry Division. He earned many military decorations and honors, including two Purple Hearts.

Edward J. Lacey
Deputy Director, Policy Planning, U.S. Department of State
Edward J. Lacey is Deputy Director of the Policy Planning Staff. Before joining the Staff, he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance. As head of the U.S. Delegation to the International Conference on Verification of the Biological Weapons Convention, he was given the Personal Rank of Ambassador. Prior to 1999, Dr. Lacey served in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency as Deputy Assistant Director, and as Principal Deputy Director of the Department of Defense On-Site Inspection Agency. Previously, he served as Deputy Chief of Staff to the Special Advisor to the President for Arms Control Matters; Director of the Standing Requirements Office in the Intelligence Community Staff; Senior Advisor on the U.S. Delegation to the U.S.-Soviet Standing Consultative Commission; Special Assistant to the Director of Systems Analysis in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations; and with the Central Intelligence Agency. Dr. Lacey graduated from the University of Notre Dame and Villanova, and has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Rutgers University. He is a Career Member of the Senior Executive Service and was named Meritorious Senior Executive in 2003. He is the recipient of both the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Service and the Department of State Superior Honor Award.

Ambassador Johnnie Carson
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Ambassador Johnnie Carson has been Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs since May 2009. Prior to this he was the National Intelligence Officer for Africa at the National Intelligence Council (NIC), after serving as the Senior Vice President of the National Defense University (2003–2006).

Carson's thirty year career with the U.S. Foreign Service includes ambassadorships to Kenya (1999-2003), Zimbabwe (1995–1997), and Uganda (1991–1994); and he was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs (1997–1999). Earlier in his career he had assignments in Portugal, Botswana, Mozambique, and Nigeria). In the 1970's Ambassador Carson served as desk officer in the Africa section at State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research; Staff Officer for the Secretary of State, and Staff Director for the Africa Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Before joining the U.S. Foreign Service, Ambassador Carson was a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania from 1965–1968. He has a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science from Drake University and a Master of Arts in International Relations from the School of Oriental and Africa Studies at the University of London.

Walker Roberts
Principal, BGR Government Affairs
Walker Roberts is Principal at BGR, the Managing Director of BGR's London office and an Executive Director of BGR Capital & Trade. Walker's work focuses on assisting U.S. and foreign companies with their business-to-business activities. Walker leads BGR's lobbying efforts in assisting clients on immigration and visa-related matters, especially regarding high-tech issues, and works with other BGR Principals on advocacy efforts on behalf of the Republic of India, Poland and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq. Walker joined BGR in 2006 after serving nearly 17 years under four chairmen on the staff of the House Committee on International Relations serving most recently as Deputy Staff Director under Chairman Henry J. Hyde from 2001 to 2006. Walker also served as the primary liaison to the Republican Leadership and Appropriations Committee on all legislative and oversight matters, including the State Department Authorization Act, the Export Administration Act and the Defense Authorization Act. He is well-regarded for his foreign policy expertise, particularly in the areas of foreign aid and security assistance, non-proliferation and export controls, and arms transfers and defense trade matters. From 1987 to 1989, Walker served under President Ronald Reagan in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, before which he worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under Chairman Richard G. Lugar. He received his Master of Arts from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and his Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, from Denison University.

Peter Yeo
Vice President for Public Policy, UN Foundation
Peter Yeo joined the United Nations Foundation and the Better World Campaign in February 2009 after over twenty years of legislative, analytical, and management experience, including senior roles on Capitol Hill and in the State Department. Prior to arriving at UNF, Yeo served for ten years as the Deputy Staff Director at the House Foreign Affairs Committee chaired by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA). He has worked on a broad range of foreign policy and foreign aid issues. He led the successful negotiations for the landmark HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003, commonly known as PEPFAR, as well as the successful $50 billion reauthorization of the law in 2008. He also shepherded into law several measures dealing with China, Tibet, Burma, and East Timor. Prior to his work with the House Committee, he served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. State Department during the Second Clinton Administration, where he led the negotiations around repayment of the U.S. arrears to the United Nations and was part of the U.S. delegation to the climate negotiations in Kyoto. Yeo holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Wesleyan University as well as a MA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University.

Leslie Phillips
Communications Director, U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Leslie Phillips is the Communications Director at the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and a Senior Advisor to Senator Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., since 1997. In this position she has organized, managed, and implemented successful media strategy for major legislative accomplishments, including the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act, passed by Congress in 2004, the Homeland Security Act, passed in 2002, and the 9/11 Commission legislation to examine the circumstances leading up to and around the September 11 terrorist attacks, passed in 2002. She has been an adjunct professor at American University, Washington D.C. and was a political and congressional correspondent (1982–1996). including 1984, 1988, 1992 presidential campaigns at USA Today, Washington, D.C.

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