Chester A. Crocker

Roger D. Carstens is currently serving as a Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. He is a retired Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel whose last posting was to serve as an advisor to the Iraqi National Counter Terror Force in Baghdad, Iraq. Prior to his tour in Iraq, he served as a Legislative Liaison for the Secretary of Defense in Washington, D.C. As an Army Ranger, he participated in a combat parachute assault during the invasion of Panama and later commanded three Army Special Forces Companies.

While he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), he testified before Congress on his report “The Future of Special Operations.” Additionally, he co-wrote the “Independent Task Force on Progress and Reform” report on the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and “Changing the Culture of Pentagon Contracting,” published by the New America Foundation.

While he was in the Army, he co-wrote the report “Ethical Dilemmas for Special Forces,” published by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University; and contributed to “Preventing the Next Wave of Conflict: Understanding Non-Traditional Threats to Global Stability,” a report published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars´ Conflict Prevention Project. A writer on national security affairs, he has been published in USA Today, The Washington Times, U.S. Naval Institute´s Proceedings, National Review Online, and Christian Science Monitor and has been a featured guest on C-SPAN´s Washington Journal, Fox News Live, and National Public Radio.

He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and holds a master´s degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College.