The Alexander Hamilton Society | 1

“No government could give us tranquility and happiness at home which did not possess sufficient stability and strength to make us respectable abroad.”

ALEXANDER HAMILTON Speech at the Constitutional Convention, June 29, 1787

The Alexander Hamilton Society (AHS) is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting constructive debate on basic principles and contemporary issues in foreign, economic, and national security policy.

Founded in March 2010 by Aaron Friedberg of Princeton University, Daniel Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute, and Roy Katzovicz of Saddle Point Group LLC, AHS is a membership organization—not a think tank or an advocacy group. As we build a national network of outstanding students, faculty, and professionals, we sponsor debates at colleges and universities, as well as in major cities, and provide other opportunities for our members to flourish intellectually, professionally, and personally.

During our first four years, we have sponsored over 400 events on 46 campuses, in Miami, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., with over 17,000 attending. We now have chapters at 50 top-ranked colleges and universities.

The warm response to our programs is a consequence of the intense, unfulfilled demand for the kind of vigorous, fruitful debate AHS provides. Over one-fourth of our events during the 2014-15 year had 100 or more attending. A senior faculty member who participated in a Hamilton event wrote that “The air was electric with excitement. Questions were hard, but respectful. This truly was an exceptional event.” A student at the University of Pennsylvania responded to one of our debates by remarking, “It’s sad that the University doesn’t offer anything comparable to this.”

Joseph Riley, founder and president of our University of Virginia chapter spoke directly to the benefit of his participation in the Hamilton Society: “I was fortunate to receive both the Truman and Rhodes Scholarships, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would not have been able to receive either of these scholarships had it not been for the Hamilton Society. The leadership role I was able to play in founding the UVA chapter has also prepared me to be a leader in the United States Army.”

After we helped him secure a position with a policy journal in Turkey, a former president of our Stanford chapter wrote, “I owe you a big thanks for helping me start my professional life in such an exciting manner.” The founder of our Duke University chapter, in summing up her year as president, spoke for many of our students: “I have been thoroughly impressed with the opportunities, professionalism, and growth of AHS.”

And this is only the beginning for the Hamilton Society. If we continue to make a genuine difference in the intellectual and professional development of our students, we will continue to grow, as we have these first four years, to the limit of our resources.

11 DuPont Circle NW • SUITE 325 • WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036 • 202.559.7389• WWW.HAMSOC.ORG The Alexander Hamilton Society | 2

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Since 9/11, events have raised pressing questions about the sources, limits, proper uses, and future trajectory of American power, yet a much-needed rethinking of our foreign and security policy has not taken place. Instead, our national debate has become increasingly polarized and ill informed.

In recent years, the liberal internationalism that dominated both the immediate post-Vietnam years and the first decade after the Cold War has reasserted itself. Naïve about international threats, dedicated to multilateralism for its own sake, with a domestic agenda that greatly increases government’s role in the economy, and with little interest in maintaining America’s position of leadership in the world, this approach once again is proving its inadequacy.

Unfortunately, liberal internationalism’s most vocal critics offer little in its place. Many promote a false realism that defines our interests so narrowly that it risks becoming, under the pressure of troubled economic times, indistinguishable from isolationism. Both approaches often misunderstand or ignore the critically important connection between our economic and foreign policy.

We believe the state of our foreign, economic, and security policy is a direct consequence of the narrow intellectual environment at American universities:

The greatest problems in American foreign policy and more generally in our political life . . . . reflect weaknesses in the way we train and prepare people for this kind of work and more generally in the relationship of intellectuals to American society. . . . Our universities have largely abdicated what ought to be part of their core mission (Walter Russell Mead, editor-at-large, The American Interest).

We cannot revitalize our foreign policy without influencing the institutions that educate our scholars, diplomats, policy experts, journalists, and business leaders.

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Now is the best time in the last thirty years for AHS to undertake its mission. Since 9/11, there has been a growing gap between undergraduates, whose views are more representative of the country as a whole, and their professors, whose commitment to liberal internationalism remains steadfast. Many graduate and professional school programs now include among their students returning veterans and active duty military personnel, as well as current and former members of the Foreign Service and intelligence communities. These young people do not all share the same views, but a significant number are skeptical of the academy’s prevailing opinions of America’s power and proper place in the world.

Moreover, many institutions have at least one faculty member whose views are out of step with those of the majority of their colleagues. From these students and faculty, AHS has formed, in effect, a “virtual university” that supplies what American higher education lacks: vital, constructive debate on foreign, economic, and national security policy.

Our professional chapters in New York, San Francisco, and Washington, work closely with our student chapters and are bridges for our student leaders to promising internships, graduate programs, and professional opportunities in the worlds of business, finance, policymaking, and journalism. A distinguished board of advisors assists us in maintaining the integrity of our programs.

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Influencing the debate in academia, building a “counter-network” to the current establishment, is the best means of renewing our foreign, economic, and national security policy in the coming decade. Electoral and public policy victories last no longer than leaders with the vision to sustain them.

While our focus is on the long term, our approach has also been effective in the near term. A number of our student members have already finished their degrees and assumed positions of responsibility, soon to be joined by many others. The cost of expanding our virtual university has been comparatively low— per person, about the amount the typical college student spends on coffee each semester.

As Roger Hertog, one of AHS’s founding supporters, told students at our National Symposium:

We have depleted the intellectual capital that got us through the Cold War, and we are faced with universities where the conversations have become narrower and narrower, the thinking and writing are diluted, and a deep understanding of the past is being lost. To me, that sums up why the Hamilton Society is so important. We are investing in students so that ten or twenty years from now, we will look back and see that many of the nation’s leaders got their start in a chapter of the Hamilton Society.

The urgency of our current challenges and the enthusiastic response to the Hamilton Society confirm that AHS’s timing and approach are ideal. The current flux in our politics provides a unique opportunity to shape the next generation of leaders as they prepare for public service, academia, law, journalism, or business. Engaging citizens from all walks of life and at every stage in their careers, the Alexander Hamilton Society will lay the ground for a new consensus on American foreign policy.

UNIVERSITY CHAPTERS (Median U.S. News rank = 89th percentile; median Forbes rank = 91st percentile)

American University Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University Arizona State University Baltimore Stetson University Ashland University Johns Hopkins University, Texas A&M University Brown University SAIS Tufts University Bucknell University Kenyon College University of Chicago Christopher Newport Lawrence University University of Cincinnati University Marquette University University of Dallas Claremont Colleges Miami University University of Mississippi Colby College Michigan State University University of North Colgate University New York University Carolina, College of the Holy Cross Northwestern University Chapel Hill Columbia University Oberlin College University of Pennsylvania Dartmouth College Ohio State University University of Oregon Duke University Ohio University University of Texas, George Mason University Pepperdine University Austin George Washington Princeton University University of Virginia University St. John’s College, University of Wisconsin, Georgetown University Annapolis Madison Grove City College St. Lawrence University Washington College Harvard University Southern Methodist Williams College Hillsdale College University Yale University

PROFESSIONAL CHAPTERS Miami, New York City, San Francisco, Washington, D.C

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS (Affiliations are for identification only)

Daniel Blumenthal, American Enterprise Institute Aaron L. Friedberg, Princeton University Roger Hertog, Hertog Foundation Roy J. Katzovicz, Saddle Point Group LLC Paul V. Lettow, Jones Day David McCormick, Bridgewater Associates Arvind Sanger, Geosphere Capital Laurence Zuriff, Xometry

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Gabriel Scheinmann • [email protected]

BOARD OF ADVISORS (Affiliations are for identification only)

Elliott Abrams, Council on Foreign William Inboden, University of Texas, Relations Austin Gerard Alexander, University of Virginia Robert Kagan, Brookings Institution Ambassador John Bolton, American Charles Kesler, Claremont McKenna Enterprise Institute College Max Boot, Council on Foreign Relations James C. Kraska, Foreign Policy Research Jennifer Bryson, The Witherspoon Institute Institute Ian Brzezinski, Atlantic Council William Kristol, Weekly Standard Kara Bue, Armitage International Robert Lieber, Georgetown University James Carafano, The Heritage Foundation Thomas Mahnken, Johns Hopkins Eliot Cohen, Johns Hopkins University, University, SAIS SAIS Peter Mansoor, The Ohio State University Elbridge Colby, Center for a New American Henry R. Nau, George Washington Security University J. D. Crouch, QinetiQ North America Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings Institution Lisa Curtis, The Heritage Foundation Mackubin Thomas Owens, Orbis Jacqueline Deal, Long Term Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, Washington Strategy Group College Michael Doran, Brookings Institution Stanley Renshon, City University of New Colin Dueck, George Mason University York Mackenzie Eaglen, American Enterprise Stephen Rosen, Harvard University Institute Michael Rubin, American Enterprise Thomas Farr, The Berkley Center, Institute Georgetown University Kori Schake, Hoover Institution Peter Feaver, Duke University Gary Schmitt, American Enterprise Institute Michael Green, Georgetown University & Randall Schriver, Armitage International CSIS Ambassador Kristen Silverberg, Institute of Jakub Grygiel, Johns Hopkins University, International Finance SAIS Ashley Tellis, Carnegie Endowment for Brian Hook, Latitude LLC International Peace John Hannah, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

11 DuPont Circle NW • SUITE 325 • WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036 • 202.559.7389• WWW.HAMSOC.ORG