On Friday, October 26, Daniel Morgan Graduate School (DMGS) faculty members presented the Defense in the 21st Century panel at The American Veterans Center and the World War II Veterans Committe’s 21st Annual Conference. The DMGS panelists who discussed issues and challenges facing America’s military and security forces in the 21st Century included the following individuals:

• Ronald Marks, Chairman, Intelligence Program – Cyber Security;
• Associate Professor Michael Sharnoff, Ph.D., Director, Strategic Regional Initiatives – The Middle East; Associate Professor Preston McLaughlin, Colonel USMC (Retired) – Indo-Pacific and South China Sea;
• Associate Professor Yuval Weber, Ph.D., Kennan Institute Associate Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies – Russia;
• Moderated by Thomas Cynkin, Ph.D., Vice President for External Affairs.

The three-day event features panels and discussions with America’s most decorated and distinguished veterans and active duty personnel from World War II to the present day. AVC advertises the event as “a once-in-a-lifetime chance to spend a weekend in the company of heroes.”  The event also includes:

• The Wounded Warrior Experience, a very special reception & discussion
• American Valor: A Salute to Our Heroes, the first and only televised awards show recognizing our military heroes.

This panel demonstrates DMGS’s commitment to participating and sponsoring events that can help prepare the next generation of leaders, scholars, and practitioners to develop actionable solutions to global and domestic security challenges. DMGS students participate in DMGS’s  unique mission studying how to “develop actionable solutions to global security challenges.”

Yuval Weber, Ph.D., is Daniel Morgan Graduate School’s inaugural DMGS-Kennan Institute fellow. Most recently, Dr. Weber taught at Harvard University, where he was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department on Government and a Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis Research Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. His work has appeared in Problems of Post-Communism, International Studies Review, Survival, Cold War Studies, Orbis, and the Washington Post.

Colonel Preston McLaughlin was appointed an Associate Professor of National Security to the Daniel Morgan Graduate School of National Security in August 2017.

He also currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer for Aquilae Consulting Services, LLC.  He previously served as the Deputy Program Manager for Operations and Support in the System High Corporation Support Team at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Security & Intelligence Directorate from 2012-2016. Col.  McLaughlin retired from active duty service following over 27 and a half years as a Marine Officer from 1983-2010.

Dr. Michael Sharnoff is the Director of Regional Studies at DMGS, where he is an Associate Professor of Middle East Studies. He is the author of Nasser’s Peace: Egypt’s Response to the 1967 War with Israel (2017).

Dr. Sharnoff has traveled extensively in the Middle East and has lived in three major world capitals. He has congressional experience on Capitol Hill; worked at influential policy centers in Washington; and publishes frequently on the Middle East. His articles have appeared in major publications including The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Al Arabiya, Palestine-Israel Journal and Your Middle East. He completed a Ph.D. in Middle East Studies from King’s College, London, and his research interests include the Arab-Israeli conflict, Political Islam and contemporary Middle Eastern history.

Ronald A. Marks is currently the Chair of the Intelligence program at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School of National Security (DMGS). Ronald “Ron” Marks is a 33-year veteran of the U.S. national security community. A former CIA official, Ron was a clandestine service officer and a Senate Liaison for five DCIs. He went on to serve on Capitol Hill as Intelligence Counsel to Senate Majority Leaders Robert Dole and Trent Lott. Ron maintains his involvement with intelligence matters as a member of various Intelligence Community advisory groups. Marks was President of Intelligence Enterprises, LLC, a privately held national security management-consulting firm. He also headed the DC office of Oxford Analytics, a nationally recognized analytical, strategic, and consuling firm. He is the author of Spying in America in the Post 9/11 World: Domestic Threat and the Need for Change.

Dr. Thomas Cynkin is the Vice President of External Affairs at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School of National Security and Adjunct Professor of Economics at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Cynkin previously headed the Washington Office of Fujitsu Ltd. as Vice President and General Manager. A former Foreign Service Officer for 24 years, he served seven years as a Japanese-speaking diplomat in Japan and was the Asian affairs advisor to two Deputy Secretaries of State and two US Ambassadors to the UN. Dr. Cynkin received his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He was a Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and worked at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis before entering government service.