Person

Lieutenant General John “Jocko” Toolan Jr. served as the Commander, Marine Forces Pacific, from August 2014 until August 2016. He retired from active duty on 1 October 2016 and participated in JINSA’s Generals and Admirals Program to the Middle East

Yaniv Menahem is the Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s (JINSA) Director for Middle East Operations, a position he has held since March 2025. He previously served as JINSA’s Middle East Operations Manager from April 2018. Prior to his

Ari Cicurel has been Associate Director of Foreign Policy at JINSA since January 2025. His prior roles at JINSA include as Assistant Director of Foreign Policy from 2023-2025, Senior Policy Analyst from 2020-2023, and Policy Analyst from September 2018-January 2020.

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

Jack Gardner served in command positions in Europe, Latin America, Korea, Bosnia, Iraq and numerous locations in the US. In his final assignment he served as the Deputy Commander of U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany and the US military

Richard L. Wagner, Jr. is a physicist who has worked in nuclear weapon design and development, missile defense, treaty-verification, non-proliferation, countering nuclear terrorism and WMD in general, information technology for defense applications, defense intelligence, and nuclear and non-nuclear energy. Between

Dr. James A. Tegnelia, vice president, Department of Defense Programs, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M., has been named the third Director, Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, Dr.