The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Speakers:General John Johns on “The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan”
Colonel William Hauser on “The Impact on Our Military of the Wars in Iraq & Afghanistan”

Brigadier General Dr. John H. Johns served as a combat arms officer in the Army for over 26 years, retiring as a brigadier general in 1978. During his career, he served in command assignments up to Assistant Commander of the 1st Infantry Division. He also served in a number of staff positions, including 8 years on the Army General Staff, retiring as the Director of Human Resources Development. He taught leadership and ethics at the U.S. Military Academy and has lectured on ethics at the Air War College, the Army War College, the U.S. Military Academy, and the Naval Academy.

Following active duty, Dr. Johns continued to serve in the Defense Department for many years. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and, subsequently, Professor of Political Science at the National Defense University (Ft. McNair). He was Dean of the Faculty at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (1990 - 1995) and adjunct professor at the Federal Executive Institute (1996 - 2004). He is currently associated with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, D. C.

Dr. Johns has an undergraduate degree in economics and political science from the University of Alabama. He has masters’ degrees from Vanderbilt (psychology) and George Washington University (international affairs) and a Ph.D. from American University (sociology). He is also a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College, The National War College, and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

William Locke Hauser retired in 1994 as director of executive development for Pfizer Inc. A career U. S. Army officer (1954-79) before entering business, he remains involved with the military as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as a fellow of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces & Society, and as a sometime consultant on officer development to the Department of Defense and to the armed forces committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

A graduate of West Point, he later taught there, including a term as a Fulbright-Hays exchange fellow at the University of Singapore. He served with troops in the U. S., Germany, Korea, and Vietnam, holding battalion command in combat in Vietnam and brigade command in Germany. During general-staff service in the Pentagon, he participated in major studies on officer and NCO professional development; and, in lieu of war-college attendance, was a research fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. On leave from Pfizer, he headed a military manpower team on the presidential Grace Commission on government effectiveness.

In addition to journal articles, book chapters, reviews and op-ed pieces which have appeared in the Military Review, Army, Armed Forces Journal, Defense Analysis and the New York Times Book Review, among others, he has published one book, America's Army in Crisis (Johns Hopkins, 1973). In his “third career” of writing fiction, he has published more than twenty short stories and narrative essays. He is presently associated with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington D.C.

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation is a non-profit, non-partisan organization located in Washington that researches nuclear arms control and other national security issues.