Mackenzie Eaglen is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness.
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While working at AEI, Ms. Eaglen served as a staff member on the National Defense Strategy Commission, a congressionally mandated bipartisan review group whose final report in November 2018, “Providing for the Common Defense,” included assessments and recommendations for the administration’s defense strategy. Earlier, Ms. Eaglen also served as a staff member on the National Defense Panel, a blue-ribbon commission established in 2014 to assess US defense interests and strategic objectives. This continued her previous work as a staff member for the 2010 congressionally mandated bipartisan Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel

Before joining AEI, Ms. Eaglen worked on defense issues in the House of Representatives, in the US Senate, and at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and on the Joint Staff.

A prolific writer on defense-related issues, Ms. Eaglen has been published in the popular press, including in The New York Times, The Wall St. Journal, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, The Hill, Roll Call, Defense News, RealClearPolitics, and War on the Rocks. She has also testified before Congress.

Ms. Eaglen has an M.A. from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a B.A. from Mercer University.