Join the McCain Institute for the next installment of its book talk series on Wednesday, October 28, 2026. This event will feature Dr. Kori Schake, Director of the foreign and defense policy studies team at the American Enterprise Institute, and McCain Institute Executive Director Dr. Evelyn Farkas. They will discuss Dr. Schake’s latest book, The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States.
Authors & Insights: Kori Schake
Dr. Kori Schake leads the foreign and defense policy studies team at the American Enterprise Institute. She has had a distinguished career in government, working in the Joint Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, and the National Security Council Staff. She has taught at Stanford, West Point, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs.
She is the author of six books, including Safe Passage: the Transition from British to American Hegemony, and is the editor, with Jim Mattis, of Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military. Previously, she was the Deputy Director General of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
She holds a PhD and two master’s degrees from the University of Maryland and did her undergraduate studies at Stanford.
Through this event series, the McCain Institute hopes to engage the American people in a dialogue that affirms the importance of character-driven leadership and America’s leadership in the international community. The McCain Institute’s Authors & Insights series features interviews with authors of books on American politics, policy, and leadership that affirm the importance of character-driven leadership and America’s role in the world.
Previous authors have included USA Today’s Susan Page, former U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright, journalist Anne Applebaum, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Dr. Mark Esper, CBS News’ Major Garrett and elections expert David Becker, former World Food Programme Executive Director Amb. Cindy McCain, CNN’s Jake Tapper, former POLITICO National Security Reporter Alex Ward, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and more.
The McCain Institute is grateful to the Merrill Family Foundation for the generous support of the Authors & Insights series.