Policy Powwow

The recently reconfigured Defense Policy Board is set to meet this week to take up a classified agenda, according to knowledgeable sources. The two-day gathering, which begins Wednesday and culminates with the group presenting findings to the defense secretary on Thursday, comes as the military is managing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and as the Defense Department is hammering out a new 20-year blueprint for the entire military enterprise.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates will likely hear some new perspectives on national security challenges from the 11 new members appointed in July.

The board is chaired by John Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and includes:

Richard Danzig, President Obama's national security adviser during the presidential campaign; former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel; journalist Robert Kaplan; John Nagl, director of the Center for New American Security; Rudy DeLeon, senior vice president at the Center for American Progress and a senior Pentagon official during the Clinton administration; Robert Gallucci, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the former dean of Georgetown University's foreign service school; Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and author of the recent book “7 Deadly Scenarios,” which recently impressed Gates; Steven Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations; Sarah Sewall, a human rights policy expert and a Harvard University professor; Wendy Sherman, a principal at the Albright Group who was a senior diplomat during the Clinton administration; Larry Welch, a retired Air Force general; David McCurdy, former Democratic Oklahoma congressman and co-author of 1982 landmark weapon system acquisition legislation; Frank Miller, a veteran Pentagon policy official; former defense secretaries Harold Brown, James Schlesinger and William Perry; former DOD official J.D. Crouch; Fred Ikle, the Pentagon's policy chief during the Reagan administration; Henry Kissinger, former President Richard Nixon's top diplomat; Marin Strmecki, senior vice president of the Smith Richardson Foundation; Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota; Vern Clark, retired admiral and former chief of naval operations; Jack Keane, retired general and former Army vice chief of staff; and Peter Pace, retired Marine Corps general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.