White House Warriors and the Politics of National Security

Dr. John Gans is the Managing Director of Executive Communications and Strategic Engagement at the Rockefeller Foundation. In addition, Gans teaches graduate and undergraduate classes on the international order, the politics and process of American foreign policy, and national security. He is also a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and a board member at the World Affairs Council of New Jersey.

In the wake of the September 11th attacks, Gans was a press liaison at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, where he helped brief the media on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The experience drove his interest in public service and global affairs, and his desire to help individuals and institutions tell their stories and achieve their objectives, whether in war, for the bottom line, at the ballot box, in Washington, or in the marketplace of ideas.

In the years since, Gans served at the Pentagon as chief speechwriter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. He was the principal adviser to the secretary on the planning, positioning, and preparation of remarks, managed a team of writers, and drafted dozens of speeches delivered around the world on defense policy in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Previously, Gans worked for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, and U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. For a decade, he served in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

In 2019, Gans published White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War, and this book is the subject of our conversation today.