About Us

The Center for National Policy, celebrating a quarter century of expertise in Washington, directly engages Capitol Hill and the executive branch on the nation’s most important national security issues. As an organization dedicated to fostering productive, insightful dialogue, CNP is uniquely able to bring together experts and policy makers from both sides of the political aisle for study, discussion, and action. Finding solutions to the complex national security issues facing our country requires building consensus and bipartisan cooperation, a vital role that CNP will continue to play through leveraging its comparative advantages and utilizing its knowledge of the policy making process.

CNP focuses on several areas of national, economic, and regional security. With a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, the Center has formed an innovative Nuclear Security Study Group, which brings together a bipartisan group of Members of Congress to discuss issues of nuclear security with experts, and also educates the public on nuclear security issues. CNP also spends time studying Asian security with a grant from TECRO, facilitating discussion of a region with serious security implications for the United States. In addition, the Center is undertaking a bold series of events centered on military transformation, and examines a range of other issues that arise in the international security arena.

The Center for National Policy’s president is former six-term member of Congress from Indiana and member of the 9/11 Commission, Tim Roemer. Peter Kovler, Director of the Majorie Kovler Fund, serves as Chairman of the Center. Leon Panetta, founder and director of the Panetta Institute, serves as CNP’s National Advisory Board Chair.

Previous Presidents and Chairmen of CNP include three former U.S. Secretaries of State, Madeleine Albright, Edmund Muskie and Cyrus Vance. Other CNP Board members have included former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Thomas Foley, former Republican Members of Congress Jack Buechner and Rod Chandler, and former Democratic Members of Congress John Brademas and Michael Barnes.