In 1969-1970 Pillsbury was the Assistant Political Affairs Officer at the United Nations. From 1971-72, he was a doctoral dissertation Fellow for the National Science Foundation in Taiwan, and in 1973-1977, Pillsbury was an analyst at the Social Science Department at RAND. In 1978, Pillsbury was a research fellow at the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

During the Reagan administration, Dr. Pillsbury was the Assistant Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning and responsible for implementation of the program of covert aid known as the Reagan Doctrine. In 1975-76, while an analyst at the RAND Corporation, Pillsbury published articles in Foreign Policy and International Security recommending that the United States establish intelligence and military ties with China. The proposal, publicly commended by Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, and James Schlesinger, later became US policy during the Carter and Reagan administrations.

Pillsbury served on the staff of four US Senate Committees from 1978-1984 and 1986-1991. As a staff member, Pillsbury drafted the Senate Labor Commitee version of the legislation that enacted the US Institute of Peace in 1984. He also assisted in drafting the legislation to create the National Endowment for Democracy and the annual requirement for a DOD report on Chinese military power.

In 1992, under President George H. W. Bush, Pillsbury was Special Assistant for Asian Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, reporting to Andrew W. Marshall, Director of Net Assessment. Michael Pillsbury is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Rebeccah L. Heinrichs is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and the director of its Keystone Defense Initiative. She specializes in US national defense policy with a focus on strategic deterrence.

Ms. Heinrichs currently serves as a commissioner on the bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission, which was created in the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. She also serves on the US Strategic Command Advisory Group and the National Independent Panel on Military Service and Readiness.

She is an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics where she teaches nuclear deterrence theory and is also a contributing editor of Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy.

Ms. Heinrichs earned her MA in national security and strategic studies from the US Naval War College and graduated with highest distinction from its College of Naval Command and Staff, receiving the Director’s Award for academic excellence. She earned her BA in history and political science from Ashland University in Ohio, was an Ashbrook Scholar, and currently serves as a member of the University’s Board of Trustees. She is enrolled at Missouri State University pursuing her doctorate of defense and strategic studies.

She lives in Virginia with her husband and their five children.

He is co-author of two Hudson Institute reports, Countering Russian Kleptocracy and The Enablers: How Western Professionals Import Corruption and Strengthen Authoritarianism. His work has been published in the Washington Post, The Washington Examiner, The Hill, the Wall Street Journal, and the National Endowment for Democracy’s Power 3.0 project. He has also appeared on CNN and foreign television media.

Nate holds an M.A. in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews and was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2012. He subsequently worked as a researcher for two Members of the UK Parliament, and as a public relations consultant in Doha, Qatar. He joined Hudson Institute in February 2016.

Prior to joining Hudson Institute, Mr. Billingslea was the special presidential envoy for arms control at the U.S. Department of State, holding the rank of ambassador. In this capacity, he led arms control negotiations and worked with partners and allies in Europe and Asia on the development and deployment of defensive capabilities.

Before joining the State Department, Mr. Billingslea served as the assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he built international coalitions and led U.S. efforts to counter illicit financial activities around the globe. In 2018, he was selected as president of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)—the global anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing body—and co-chaired the global Counter-ISIS Finance Group and multiple bilateral negotiating fora with friendly and allied nations. Earlier in his career, he served for more than six years as the senior professional staff member for national security affairs on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Before rejoining the U.S. government in 2017, Mr. Billingslea spent more than eight years in the private sector. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in several senior roles within the Department of Defense and at NATO, including as deputy undersecretary of the Navy and assistant secretary general for defense investment at NATO.

Mr. Billingslea holds a Bachelor of Arts from Dartmouth College and a Master of Arts in law and diplomacy from Tufts University. He has been awarded the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service by the U.S. Secretary of Defense and decorated by the U.S. Secretary of the Navy with the Distinguished Public Service medal, and received the Treasury Medal in recognition of his work at the Department of the Treasury.

Mr. Rough is a regular commentator on major radio and television and speaker in public forums. While at the institute, he has been named a next generation leader at the Munich Security Conference, Atlantik-Brücke, the Center for New American Security, and the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies. He has also helped edit Hudson’s journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology.

Mr. Rough is also principal and founder of Hilltop Solutions, a limited liability company that performs writing and research services for academics, executives, and political professionals. Previously, as director of research in the Office of George W. Bush, Mr. Rough assisted the former president with his memoir, Decision Points. In 2014, his highly acclaimed collaboration with Leila Fawaz on a social history of World War I in the Middle East, A Land of Aching Hearts, was published by Harvard University Press.

From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Rough served as associate director in the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, where he helped coordinate political strategy and outreach to key stakeholders. He has also completed stints as a policy analyst at the US Agency for International Development, where he was staff briefer to Administrator Henrietta Fore, and as an advisor to US Army Special Operations Command, where he analyzed unconventional warfare doctrine for the commanding general’s Strategic Initiatives Group. In 2012, he was responsible for US-Russia bilateral relations as a member of the Romney for President Russia Working Group. In 2016, he served as a member of the Rubio for President Middle East Working Group.

Mr. Rough began his career at the Republican National Committee specializing in political research. A proud native of Des Moines, Iowa, he holds his BA, summa cum laude, from the George Washington University and MA in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he was a Cabot corporation scholar.

He is a member of the board of the Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) Berlin Commission and the American Main Street Initiative. Mr. Rough is also a member of the Friends of Ukraine Network’s (FOUN) Task Force on National Security and vice chair of the Reagan Institute’s Foreign for American Leadership Europe group. 

Mr. Rough is a native German speaker.

Prior to joining Hudson, Mr. Sobolik served as a senior fellow in Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC, where he ran the council’s Indo-Pacific Security Program. He previously served in the United States Senate as a legislative assistant to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Mr. Sobolik has offered testimony several times before Congress, including before the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the House Natural Resources Committee. His commentary has appeared in the Washington Post, Bloomberg, Reuters, Foreign Policy, Politico, and Newsweek, among others. He has also appeared on PBS, BBC, Fox News, and other outlets.

Mr. Sobolik earned a master of international affairs from the Bush School of Government and Public Service and a bachelor of science in political science at Texas A&M University. He lives with his wife and son in Alexandria, Virginia.