Featuring:

*This call is open exclusively to JINSA program participants and supporters of JINSA’s National Leadership. JINSA’s National Leadership starts at a $1,000 annual contribution.
To find out more about our National Leadership, please contact Ethan Pupkin at epupkin@jinsa.org or call 202-667-3900.

Alan Makovsky is a senior fellow for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. From 2001 to 2013, he served as a senior professional staff member on the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he covered the Middle East, Turkey, and related issues.

At the Washington Institute for Near East Policy-private think tank where he worked from 1994 to 2001-Makovsky wrote widely on various Middle Eastern and Turkish topics. He also founded and directed the Washington Institute’s Turkey Research Program.

At the State Department where he worked from 1983 to 1994-Makovsky variously covered southern European affairs and Middle Eastern affairs for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He also served as the political advisor to Operation Provide Comfort in 1992 and as the special advisor to the special Middle East coordinator from 1993 to 1994.

Ambassador Eric Edelman is the Co-Chair of the JINSA Gemunder Center Iran Policy Project and the Eastern Mediterranean Policy Project. He has served in senior positions at the Departments of State and Defense as well as the White House where he led organizations providing analysis, strategy, policy development, security services, trade advocacy, public outreach, citizen services and congressional relations.

From August 2005 to January 2009, he served as the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He oversaw strategy development as the Department of Defense’s senior policy official with global responsibility for bilateral defense relations, war plans, special operations forces, homeland defense, missile defense, nuclear weapons and arms control policies, counter-proliferation, counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, arms sales, and defense trade controls.

He served as U.S. ambassador to the Republics of Finland and Turkey in the Clinton and Bush Administrations and was principal deputy assistant to the vice president for national security affairs.

Amb. Edelman has been awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, and several Department of State Superior Honor Awards. In January 2011, he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur by the French Government.

He received a bachelor’s degree in history and government from Cornell University and has a doctorate in U.S. diplomatic history from Yale University.

Michael Makovsky, PhD is JINSA President & CEO. He is a U.S. national security expert, and has worked extensively on U.S. policy towards Iran’s nuclear program, the Middle East, and the intersection of international energy markets and politics with U.S. national security.