Events
Note this event takes place at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in at 101 Constitution Ave. NW in Washington, DC.
Perry World House and the German Marshall Fund of the United States are pleased to invite you to a conversation with Dr. John Gans to discuss his new book, White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War. Drawing upon nearly 100 interviews with senior policymakers and more than 10,000 original documents, White House Warriors shines a light on the inner workings of U.S. foreign policy and the people who drive it.
The book talk, moderated by the New York Times’ Helene Cooper, will unpack how the National Security Council (NSC) staff operates, how it came to wield immense influence over policymaking, and discuss the broader consequences of these developments for the future of American power.
If you have any questions, please contact Itai Barsade at ibarsade@gmfus.org.
Introduction
William W. Burke-White, Richard Perry Professor and Inaugural Director, Perry World House; Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania
Derek Chollet, Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor for Security and Defense Policy, The German Marshall Fund of the United States
Speaker
John Gans, Director of Communications and Research, Perry World House; Non-Resident Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States
Moderator
Helene Cooper, Pentagon Correspondent, The New York Times
William Burke-White is a professor of law at Penn Law School and inaugural director of Perry World House. Burke-White is an expert on international law and global governance, served in the Obama Administration from 2009-2011 on Secretary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff. He was principal drafter of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), Secretary Clinton’s hallmark foreign policy and institutional reform effort. Burke-White has written extensively in the fields of international law and institutions, with focus on international criminal and international economic law. His current research explores gaps in the global governance system and the challenges of international legal regulation in a world of rising powers and divergent interests.
Derek Chollet is executive vice president and senior advisor for security and defense policy at The German Marshall Fund of the United States. He served in senior positions during the Obama administration at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon, most recently as the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. He is a visiting fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. His most recent book is The Long Game: How Obama Defied Washington and Redefined America’s Role in the World.
Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent with The New York Times. She joined the paper in 2004 as assistant editorial page editor, before becoming diplomatic correspondent in 2006 and White House correspondent in 2009. In 2015, Cooper was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting on the Ebola epidemic. She is the author of The New York Times bestseller The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood, a memoir of growing up in Monrovia, Liberia, as well as Madame President: The Extraordinary Story of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
John Gans, PhD, is the director of communications and research at Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s global policy institute, and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. A former chief speechwriter at the Pentagon, he got his doctorate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
