James Jay Carafano

James Jay Carafano, a leading expert in America’s national security and foreign policy challenges, is the Washington-based Heritage Foundation’s vice president for foreign and defence policy studies and director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies.

Before assuming responsibility for Heritage’s entire defence and foreign policy team in December 2012, Dr. Carafano had served as deputy director of the Davis Institute as well as director of its Douglas and Sarah Allison Centre for Foreign Policy Studies since 2009.

Dr. Carafano is a 25-year army veteran who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and served in Europe, Korea and the U.S. His assignments included head speechwriter for the Army Chief of Staff, the service’s highest-ranking officer.

Dr. Carafano joined the Heritage Foundation as a senior research fellow in 2003. He had been a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington policy institute dedicated to defence issues.

He holds a master’s degree and a doctorate from Georgetown University, as well as a master’s degree in strategy from the U.S. Army War College. He is a visiting professor at the National Defence University and Georgetown University.

He previously served as an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, and as director of military studies at the army’s Centre of Military History. He taught at Mount Saint Mary College in New York and was a fleet professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

His most recent book is Surviving the End, a Freedom Academy e-book on disaster preparedness. He published Wiki at War: Conflict in a Socially Networked World (Texas A&M University Press, 2011). He also edits the book series The Changing Face of War, which examines how emerging political, social, economic and cultural trends will affect the nature of armed conflict.

Dr. Carafano is the co-author, with Paul Rosenzweig, of Winning the Long War: Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism and Preserving Freedom (2005) and he also co-authored a textbook, Homeland Security (McGraw-Hill, second edition 2011). His other works include G.I. Ingenuity: Improvisation, Technology and Winning World War II (2006); Waltzing Into the Cold War (2002); and After D-Day (2000).

Dr. Carafano is a regular guest analyst for the major U.S. network and cable television news organisations and other outlets including National Public Radio, Voice of America and the History Channel, Sky News and Al Jazeera.

He served as a member of the National Academy’s Board on Army Science and Technology and the Department of the Army Historical Advisory Committee.