Thomas Donnelly

            Thomas Donnelly is a writer and analyst of military affairs and defense, national security and foreign policy.  Since September 1999, he has been deputy executive director at the Project for the New American Century. 

            Donnelly began his career as a journalist in 1978 at The Journal newspapers in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, and moved to Army Times in 1980.  In 1985 he helped launch Defense News, becoming the paper’s deputy editor, the number two position, in 1987.  Later that year, he returned to Army Times as editor.  During his six years as editor, he reinvigorated the paper’s design and news coverage while writing major enterprise stories on the major military issues of the times, including Operation Just Cause in Panama, the Gulf War, and the mission to Somalia.  In 1994, he became executive editor of The National Interest. 

            In 1995, he joined the professional staff of the House Committee on Armed Services and soon was named head of the policy group.  His major contributions to the committee’s work included overseeing committee activities concerning the operations of U.S. forces in the Balkans, leading the committee’s investigation of the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia and worldwide readiness problems, and establishing a series of hearings and committee white papers on American security interests in the post-Cold War world.  In addition, Donnelly drafted significant legislative initiatives to reform the Defense Department’s readiness reporting system, explore the promise of the current revolution in military affairs, monitor developments in the Chinese military, understand the military and strategic effects of an expanded NATO alliance, and shape the requirements for the 1997 and 2001 Quadrennial Defense Reviews.   

            Donnelly is also the co-author of two books.  Operation Just Cause: The Storming of Panama has been recognized as the most complete work on the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, praised by one reviewer as “the definitive study of modern campaign planning…destined to be studied at war colleges for years to come.”  Clash of Chariots: A History of Armored Warfare, was published by Berkeley Books in 1996.  

            Donnelly is a Washington, D.C. native, born June 13, 1953, and educated at Sidwell Friends School; Ithaca College, from which he holds a baccalaureate degree in philosophy; and John Hopkins’ Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, from which he holds a master’s degree.  He lives in the Washington suburbs with his wife and two sons.