The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have selected Jane Harman, former U.S. representative for California’s 36th congressional district, and Eric Edelman, counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, to serve as chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy.
The commission, which was created in accordance with the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, is tasked with assessing the 2022 NDS and offering recommendations for its implementation, HASC said Wednesday.
Members of the commission will be expected to analyze the objectives, force posture and structure, defense investments, military risks and operational concepts of the NDS; examine the threats to U.S. national security and security environment worldwide; and submit a final report with recommendations within a year of the commission’s establishment.
Harman sits on the boards of the Department of Homeland Security and NASA and chairs the board of Freedom House. She is former president and CEO of the Wilson Center.
Edelman was undersecretary of defense for policy between 2005 and 2009 and served as U.S. ambassador to Finland during the Clinton administration and U.S. ambassador to Turkey during the George W. Bush administration.
The other newly instated commissioners are John “Jack” Keane, Thomas Mahnken, Mara Rudman, Mariah Sixkiller, Alissa Starzak and Roger Zakheim.
According to Defense News, Keane is former vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, while Mahnken is president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Zakheim is the Washington director at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
Rudman is executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress. Sixkiller is a strategic defense affairs officer at Microsoft’s defense business unit. Starzak is a VP at cybersecurity firm Cloudflare.
