Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Current job: General of the Army Omar N. Bradley Chair in Strategic Leadership at Dickinson College and the Army War College; John M. Shalikashvili Chair in National Security Studies for the National Bureau of Asian Research.

Credentials: Retired four-star admiral. Served as commander of Pacific Command from 1999 to 2002. Former president of the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally funded center providing scientific and technical research and analytical support to the Defense Department.

What he offers: Blair, 61, has 34 years of military experience and served as the CIA's first associate director of military support.

Vetting: He resigned as head of the Institute for Defense Analyses after a Pentagon inspector general's report concluded that he had violated conflict-of-interest rules for failing to distance himself from reports that could have affected companies in which he held a financial interest.

Quote: "When it comes to handling a crisis, handling a particular situation, I think we should give a strong preference to collective action. The United States may lead it; the United States may not. There may be times when we have to act unilaterally, but our strong preference should be for collective action towards these common goods, which I think we all share."