Chief Executive Officer Michael Makovsky
Michael Makovsky joined the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs in 2013. A U.S. national security expert, he has worked extensively on Iran’s nuclear program, the Middle East, and the intersection of international energy markets and politics with U.S. national security.
Michael Makovsky joined the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs in 2013. A U.S. national security expert, he has worked extensively on Iran’s nuclear program, the Middle East, and the intersection of international energy markets and politics with U.S. national security.
From 2006-2013, Makovsky managed projects for the Bipartisan Policy Center on a new U.S. policy toward Iran’s nuclear development, a new U.S. strategy toward Russia, how to augment U.S. Government capacity in stabilizing fragile states such as Yemen, devising a new bipartisan U.S. foreign policy, and how to make strategic public diplomacy an effective tool of U.S. foreign policy in Egypt and elsewhere.
Makovsky served as special assistant for Iraqi energy policy in the Office of Secretary of Defense and Director of Essential Services in the Washington office of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the postwar Allied entity that governed Iraq. In those capacities, he advised senior Defense, National Security Council and Energy officials on Iraqi energy policy. Prior to his work in the Pentagon, Makovsky worked over a decade as a senior energy market analyst for various investment firms, focusing on markets and hedging strategies for oil, petroleum products, natural gas and electric power, as well as regulatory and tax issues. Makovsky is founder and president of MSM Consulting LLC, an energy and political risk consulting firm.
Makovsky has written articles and op-eds on Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and Middle Eastern energy and diplomatic issues for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Weekly Standard, and The New Republic, and been interviewed on CNBC, CNN, NPR, Voice of America (Persian), and other media. He is also author of Churchill’s Promised Land (Yale U. Press, 2007), a diplomatic-intellectual history of Winston Churchill’s complex relationship with Zionism.
Makovsky has a Ph.D. in diplomatic history from Harvard University, an MBA in finance from Columbia Business School, and a B.A. in history from the University of Chicago.
Publications
Makovsky and Misztal: Iran’s Shrewd Move
The Weekly Standard, February 22, 2013
Robb, Ross, and Makovsky: The Economic Cost of a Nuclear Iran
The Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2012
Would redrawing map bring Mideast peace?
San Francisco Chronicle, December 13, 2012
Makovsky and Misztal: Hot Debate Over Red Lines
The Weekly Standard, September 14, 2012
Makovsky and Misztal: Iran Has No ‘Right’ To Enrich Uranium
The Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2012
Makovsky and Misztal: The Red Line for Iran
The Weekly Standard, March 2, 2012
Makovsky and Goldstein: The Real Oil Shock
The Weekly Standard, January 8, 2012
Makovsky and Misztal: Obama’s Iran policy shifts to containment
The Washington Post, December 11, 2011
How Libya’s Energy Economy Can Avoid Iraq’s Mistakes
The New Republic, September 26, 2011
Room for Growth
The New Republic, May 16, 2011
Spring Trap: We can’t treat Yemen like the other Arab uprisings
The New Republic, March 31, 2011 (co-author)
The Middle East’s New Energy Giant
The Weekly Standard, February 21, 2011
Being Winston Churchill
The New Republic, December 8, 2010
Makovsky and Goldstein: Iran, Oil, and the Carter Doctrine
The Weekly Standard, August 13, 2010
Stick must remain an option to stop Iran
San Francisco Chronicle, March 21, 2010
There Will Be Oil
The New Republic, January 27, 2010
Iraq’s Oil Progress
The Weekly Standard, August 29, 2008
The Model for McCain?
The Weekly Standard, February 14, 2008
Protecting Iraq’s Oil
The Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2007
Oil’s Not Well in Iraq
The Weekly Standard, March 19, 2007
Media Highlights
Election Smokescreen
The Washington Free Beacon, June 10, 2013
China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom
The New York Times, June 2, 2013
Energy Independence in the United States? Don’t Pop the Cork Yet
The New York Times, November 14, 2012
VIDEO: Nuclear Iran Would Have Big Impact on Oil Prices
Fox Business, October 22, 2012
Iran and the Bomb: What’s next? A roundtable discussion
American Abroad Media, April 5, 2012
Weighing The Iranian Threat
NPR’s On Point, March 6, 2012
VIDEO: Israel, U.S. ‘talking up the military option’ on Iran
CNN’s OutFront, March 2, 2012
Testimony
Testimony for Hearing, “Shifting Sands: Political Transitions in the Middle East”
House Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia, April 13, 2011