Debra L. Cagan
Senior Research Fellow

Ms. Debra L. Cagan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy. She was named Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Acting, for Coalition, Peacekeeping and Multinational Cooperation for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in December 2006. She performed this assignment while on detail from the Department of State. In this capacity she led U.S. government efforts to develop and implement international capabilities for the war on terrorism, including training, recruiting and equipping coalition partners in Iraq and Afghanistan in asymmetric warfare, counter-insurgency and headed OSD’s outreach to coalition partners in the development and deployment of counter-improvised explosive devices training and equipment. She also had responsibility for overall force integration and interoperability readiness for coalition partners. In addition, Ms. Cagan was called upon to help stand-up and enhance the capabilities of the Lebanese Armed Forces, first in 2006 and again in 2007 to enable the Lebanese to successfully defeat Fatah Al-Islam. She was also charged with UN peacekeeping operations and reform and international humanitarian disaster relief and assistance. Prior to this assignment, Ms. Cagan was detailed to the Pentagon by the State Department as Senior Counselor for Coalition Affairs for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in December 2005. In this role, she built partnership capacity for countries engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan and recruited new partners for non-kinetic roles in Afghanistan, including leading new provincial reconstruction teams.

In 2003, Ms. Cagan was appointed as Political Advisor to Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and United States Joint Forces Command. She helped spearhead the advancement of NATO’s global role by developing diplomatic relations with the allies that removed former restrictions and caveats to stabilization, reconstruction, and humanitarian missions for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan. She expanded U.S. Joint Forces Command’s global reach by establishing close relationships with nations of the Pacific Rim, North Africa and the Middle East, assisting with the removal of cold-war era limitations on information sharing and multi-national security cooperation. She coordinated international technology insertion projects such as “Coalition Force Tracker,” was instrumental in establishing NATO’s equipping and training of Iraq’s reconstructed security forces, and was critical in transforming NATO’s military forces to make them more responsive, agile and expeditionary. She is highly respected as a negotiator and diplomat who totally reformed the Political Advisor’s role for both commands.

In August 2002, she was selected to lead the development of an international coalition for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Working closely with the Joint Staff, U.S. Central Command and U.S. European Command, she helped to recruit over 30 countries to join the coalition, secured access, basing and overflight rights, and won agreements with eight countries to provide troops to join the U.S. military in the first days of the Iraq war. She later helped conceive and stand up Phase IV, including establishment of the Polish led multinational division, and recruited some 20 other countries to participate. After September 11, Ms. Cagan successfully led a campaign to secure basing and access rights in Central Asia for the Global War on Terrorism and to build a coalition of the willing among European and Eurasian countries. Thanks to her extensive contacts in the international security establishment, Ms. Cagan helped build a critical part of the anti-Taliban coalition during Operation Enduring Freedom and helped to develop the first initiative for the training and equipping of the Afghan National Army.

In 1998 Ms. Cagan was appointed to the Senior Executive Service to head a new State Department directorate charged with arms control, nonproliferation, aerospace, defense and security, for newly independent states of the former USSR. In 2001, she was appointed to head a similar office, this time for all of Europe and Eurasia. In this capacity, she helped negotiate changes to the ABM Treaty, spearheaded the move to clamp down on conventional arms transfers, including MANPADS to terrorist organizations and designated State sponsors of terrorism, and also played a critical role in halting transfers of missile and nuclear technology. Known for her ability to devise creative solutions to difficult problems, she formed the first ever partnership with a non-governmental organization, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, to discreetly remove weapons usable uranium from Belgrade before it could fall into the wrong hands. She was also instrumental in developing the initial train and equip program for Georgia.

Named Senior Adviser for Strategic Policy and Nuclear Affairs for Europe and Eurasia in 1995, she played a critical role in the formation of new nuclear weapons policies in Europe and Eurasia and U.S./NATO nuclear doctrine and NATO enlargement, including gaining agreement with other nuclear weapons states to zero-yield testing of nuclear weapons. She was a key player in the removal and destruction of nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan and a negotiator in their accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. She was also named by the White House as chief negotiator of the Highly Enriched Uranium Agreement with Russia, where she helped achieve an unprecedented agreement for dismantling thousands of Russian nuclear weapons and converting the fissile material for use in civilian reactors.

In the European Bureau from 1990-1994, she developed and implemented security policy on the destruction and dismantling of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems. Recruited in 1986 by the State Department's Intelligence and Research Bureau, she served as Deputy Chief of the Eastern European/Warsaw Pact Division and later as Deputy and Acting Chief of the Theater Forces Division, where she was one of the first to predict the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. She was also assigned to work on the military aspects of the intial border disputes among the newly independent Caucasus countries. Ms. Cagan worked on North and Sub-Saharan African affairs and on USSR/Warsaw Pact issues in the Defense Department from 1979 until 1986.

Ms. Cagan has a BA and an MA from the University of Iowa and did additional post-graduate work at the University of Chicago. She has received numerous awards for her accomplishments from the Departments of State and Defense and from other countries.