Brent Scowcroft

Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft (USAF ret.) is a counselor and trustee at CSIS and is president of the Scowcroft Group, an international business consulting firm. He is also the founder, president, and resident trustee of the Forum for International Policy, a nonprofit organization providing independent perspectives and opinions on major foreign policy issues. General Scowcroft served as the national security adviser to Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush. He also served as military assistant to President Richard Nixon and as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs to Presidents Ford and Nixon. Prior to joining the Bush administration, General Scowcroft was vice chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc. from 1982-1989. In that capacity, he advised and assisted a wide range of U.S. and foreign corporate leaders on global joint venture opportunities, strategic planning, and risk assessment. In the course of his twenty-nine year military career, General Scowcroft has held positions in the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Headquarters of the U.S. Air Force, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. In other assignments, he served in faculty positions at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and as assistant air attaché in the U.S. embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. General Scowcroft had an aeronautical rating as a pilot and has numerous military decorations and awards. In addition, in 1991, President Bush presented him with the Medal of Freedom Award. In 1993, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth presented him with the insignia of an Honorary Knight of the British Empire (K.B.E.) at Buckingham Palace. General Scowcroft was born in Ogden, Utah. He received his undergraduate degree and commission into the Army Air Forces from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Out of uniform, he continued in a public policy capacity by serving on the President’s Advisory Committee on Arms Control, the Commission on Strategic Forces, and the President’s Special Review Board, also known as the Tower Commission. He currently serves on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He is the coauthor, with President George H.W. Bush, of A World Transformed (Knopf, 1998). General Scowcroft is also the coauthor, with Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Ignatius, of America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy (Basic Books, 2008).