How 9/11 Changed the United States

Peter Feaver

Peter D. Feaver (Ph.D., Harvard, 1990) is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke University.  He is Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy and Co-PI of the America in the World Consortium. Feaver is author of Thanks For Your Service: The Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the US Military (Oxford University Press, 2023), Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Harvard Press, 2003) and of Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the United States (Cornell University Press, 1992).

Rachel Myrick

Rachel Myrick is the Douglas and Ellen Lowey Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke. Her research explores how partisan polarization affects foreign policymaking in democracies, with an emphasis on U.S. national security policy. More broadly, she is interested in the interplay between domestic and international politics in matters of security and conflict. Her first book, Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability, was published in 2025 with Princeton University Press in their Studies in International History and Politics Series.

Milton Sands

Milton James Sand III is a retired United States Navy Rear Admrial and Navy SEAL who served as commander of the United States Naval Specials Warfare Command from July 26, 2024 until August 22, 2025.

David Schanzer

David Schanzer is a professor of the practice at the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy University and director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. He teaches courses, conducts research and engages in public dialogue on counterterrorism strategy, counterterrorism law and homeland security.



Schanzer is the lead author of a trilogy National Institute of Justice studies on terrorism prevention: “Engaging Communities to Prevent Violent Extremism: A Review of the Obama Administration’s CVE Initiative,” (2019), “The Challenge and Promise of Using Community Policing Strategies to Prevent Violent Extremism” (2015) and “Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim Americans” (2010).

 

Peter Bergen

Peter Bergen is the author or editor of ten books that have been translated into 24 languages, three of which were New York Times bestsellers; the producer of multiple Emmy-nominated documentaries and Vice President for Global Studies and Fellows at New America, a professor of practice at Arizona State University and CNN’s national security analyst. He has held teaching positions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Susan Colbourn

Susan Colbourn is Associate Research Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy and Associate Director of the Program in American Grand Strategy. At AGS, she manages the day-to-day operations of the program, including strategic planning, events, and outreach and partnerships. A diplomatic and international historian, her research focuses on the politics of European security, grand strategy, and international order since 1945. She is the author of Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO (Cornell, 2022).