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Ivan Eland

Former Director of Defense Policy Studies

Ivan Eland, former director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, has written reports and articles on U.S. foreign and defense policies, the military threats facing the United States, military readiness, terrorism, terrorism and civil liberties, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, homeland defense, national missile defense, the ABM Treaty, submarines, special operations forces, NATO expansion, and U.S. policy towards Iraq. He is the author of the book, Putting “Defense” Back into U.S. Defense Policy: Rethinking U.S. Security in the Post‐​Cold War World. Eland was principal defense analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. There, he wrote numerous studies on such topics as the affordability of the U.S. Navy, overseas presence of aircraft carriers, trends in alliance burden sharing, and the costs of NATO expansion. Eland was an investigator for the U.S. General Accounting Office in national security and intelligence. He was an investigator on a special investigation by the House Foreign Affairs Committee of alleged CIA weapons sales to Iraq before the Gulf War. He has testified on the military and financial aspects of NATO expansion before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and CIA oversight before the House Government Reform Committee. Eland’s opinion writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union‐​Tribune, Miami Herald, St. Louis Post‐​Dispatch, Sacramento Bee, Washington Times and Defense News. He has appeared on ABC’s World News Tonight, NPR’s Talk of the Nation, PBS, Fox News Channel, CNBC, CNN, CNN Crossfire, CNN‐​fn, C‑SPAN, MSNBC, Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and the BBC. Eland is a graduate of Iowa State University and has an M.B.A. and a Ph.D. in national security policy from George Washington University.

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