- Pritzker Fellows
- Current Fellows
- Dan Caldwell
Dan Caldwell
Former Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defense
Biography
Dan Caldwell is a former senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Prior to joining the Department of Defense, Dan served as a member of the Trump-Vance Presidential Transition, focusing on identifying personnel who could fill key national security roles within the incoming administration.
Dan has spent over a decade developing and advocating for policies designed improve veterans’ health care, reduce the national debt and improve American foreign policy. Dan served as the policy director, senior advisor and executive director of Concerned Veterans for America (CVA). In this capacity, Dan played a key role in the passage of the VA MISSION Act and VA Accountability – which fundamentally reformed how the VA delivered health care to America’s veterans and how the VA holds bad employees accountable. Dan also helped launched the organization’s Ending Endless War campaign, which advocated for an end to the U.S.’s role in the wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. After nearly ten years at CVA, Dan became the Vice President of Foreign Policy Stand Together, during which he oversaw that organization’s foreign policy strategy and nonprofit investment portfolio. While at Stand Together, Dan led Stand Together’s response to the war in Ukraine and was a leading voice against further escalation in that war. Dan also served as a public policy advisor at Defense Priorities and a Vice President at Center for Renewing for America.
Dan is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and the Iraq War. Following boot camp and initial training, Dan was assigned to the Marine Corps Presidential Support Program, where he served as a member of the security force at the presidential retreat at Camp David. Following his service at Camp David, Dan deployed to Iraq with 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and conducted operations in Al Anbar and Ninawa provinces.
Following his service in the Marines, Dan worked for Rep. David Schweikert from 2011 to 2013, focusing on veterans and defense issues.
Dan graduated cum laude from Arizona State in 2011 with degrees in Asian History and Political Science. Dan has been widely interviewed and published including in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and Washington Post.
Seminars
“American Overreach: How America’s Foreign Policy Failures Propelled the MAGA Movement & Shifted the Debate”
At the end of the Cold War, the United States was the undisputed global hyperpower. As a result, a bipartisan foreign policy consensus – which endured across multiple Republican and Democrat administrations - formed around the need to achieve U.S. global primacy.
But in 2016, that bipartisan consensus was shattered with the rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, of which many veterans like me were part of. After two decades of deadly military misadventures in the Middle East – which killed thousands of Americans and left injuries and scars that still befall hundreds of thousands of them – coupled with trade deals and immigration policies that were perceived to have disadvantaged the Americans while abetting the rise of China, the conditions were ripe for a candidate like Trump to smash the holy sacraments of American foreign policy.
Let’s explore how decades of these failures and the increasing limits on American power played a role in propelling the MAGA movement, which I have supported. Together we will examine the fissures that have emerged on the political right over the future of American foreign policy and the key figures at the center of the debate.
Fellows seminars are off the record and open to current UChicago students only.
As a result of post-9/11 patriotism (and admittedly some boredom), I enlisted in the Marines as an infantryman at the height of the Iraq War. I deployed to Iraq with the 1st Marine Division, worked for a member of Congress focusing on veterans and defense issues and later for foreign policy advocacy organizations. I came to believe that our foreign policy was failing and making America less safe. Herein lies Trump’s rise, enabled by the failures of the Global War On Terror. His righteous condemnations of our failed foreign policy status quo resonated with the veteran and military communities, who overwhelmingly supported him in all his elections.
Suggested Reading:
- Trump’s Opposition to Endless Wars Appeals to Those Who Fought Them(11-1-19) | Jennifer Steinhauer, The New York Times
- The War Vets Who Want to Erode Support for Ukraine(7-4-24) | Ian Ward, POLITICO
The Iraq War is one of the worst foreign policy disasters in American history. Yet, at the time, there was very little organized opposition to the war within the D.C. foreign policy community when it began. How did professional incentives, social pressure, and relentless assaults on the patriotism of Iraq War opponents lead to that broad support of the war? How did the fallout discredit the foreign policy establishment in D.C. and open the door for new voices by the time Trump took power?
Special Guest: Christopher Preble, Senior Fellow and Director of the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center & Co-Host of the “Net Assessment” Podcast
RSVP
Suggested Reading:
- The International Relations Academy and the Beltway “Foreign Policy Community” – Why The Disconnect?(9-22-19) | Justin Logan, Cato Institute
- Unpatriotic Conservatives(3-25-03) | David Frum, National Review
What will American foreign policy look like in 2035? Will the United States be the dominant global power without any true competitor? Or will the United States once again be forced to operate in a multipolar world? Or will it all be something else? This seminar will dive into the different paths American foreign policy could take over the next ten years and whether or not the current administration will be able to effectively re-focus American foreign policy for a generation.
Special Guest: Emma Ashford, Senior Fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center, Columnist for Foreign Policy & Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service’s Center for Security Studies
Most of those who support American global primacy aren’t doing so as part of some conspiracy or for malicious reasons. They legitimately believe that American global leadership is essential for our safety and the preservation of liberalism at home and abroad. I – and others like me – do not. I will engage in civil discourse with a prominent advocate of American global leadership and primacy and our antithetical views on an aggressive and interventionist U.S. foreign policy abroad.
Special Guest (via Zoom): Eli Lake, Columnist for The Free Press, Contributing Editor at Commentary Magazine & Host of the Breaking History Podcast
Suggested Reading:
- The World Has Changed and We Must Change Along With It. Commentary Magazine (3-10-22) | Eli Lake, Commentary Magazine
With the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the Republican foreign policy consensus was shattered, creating space for a long overdue debate over what a conservative foreign policy should look like. This seminar will explain and explore the three tribes competing for control of Republican foreign policy – the prioritizers, restrainers, and primacists. Who is up, who is down, and which side has the advantage in the long term?
Special Guest: Curt Mills, Executive Director of The American Conservative
- Polarised power: The three Republican “tribes” that could define America’s relationship with the world (10-17-22) | Jeremy Shapiro, European Council on Foreign Relations
President Trump’s second-term administration is staffed much differently than his first term. Unlike in 2017, Trump has staffed his current administration largely with people who reject the pre-2016 GOP foreign policy consensus and who believe the United States should pursue a more America-first foreign policy. I was on the outside in Trump 1, and, in Trump 2, I came inside. How do those with views I share in key roles in the administration impact policy making and decision-making, and when do they fall short?
Who are the main actors driving current American policy, and what do they believe? What are their incentives – whether economic, social or professional – and most importantly, are they ultimately driving a better foreign policy for the American people? This seminar will explore the various factions in the think-tank community – since the end of the Cold War when advocates of primacy won out over a more America-first approach – to today. How does the media cover the national security state, and how do foreign governments and the military industrial complex influence American foreign policy?