Brian T. Kennedy

Brian T. Kennedy is the current President of the Claremont Institute, an organization that seeks to promote the restoration of "the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life." Kennedy has been with the Claremont Institute since 1989 and its President since 2002. He also serves as the Publisher of the Claremont Review of Books and the Director of the Claremont Institute's National Security Project. Kennedy has published articles in several national news outlets such as: Claremont Review of Books, National Review, Investor's Business Daily, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous national newspapers.
Background
Kennedy is a native Californian and holds a degree from Claremont McKenna College.
Missile Defense
Kennedy is a strong proponent of missile defense for the United States. Kennedy cites that the Founders saw national security as being of the utmost importance. To support this position, Kennedy cites the Preamble of the Constitution, in which one of the preeminent tasks laid out for the government is to "provide for the common defense"; Kennedy also notes that the third Federalist Paper also emphasizes this need, “Among the many objects to which a wise and free people find it necessary to direct their attention, that of providing for their safety seems to be the first.”
In his 2009 article, Securing the Future, Kennedy recommended that the United States should create a "comprehensive layered missile-defense system" which would protect the country from any incoming attacks. Kennedy writes that the gravest threat the US faces is an electromagnetic pulse caused by detonation of a nuclear warhead approximately 300 miles above ground level. Such a pulse could "permanently destroy consumer electronics, the electronics in some automobiles and, most importantly, the hundreds of large transformers that distribute power throughout the U.S.". Kennedy continues to describe the grave consequences: "All of our lights, refrigerators, water-pumping stations, TVs and radios stop running. We have no communication and no ability to provide food and water to 300 million Americans."
Views on Progressivism
Kennedy is critical of the progressive movement and its results. In a 2010 interview with Glenn Beck, Kennedy voiced his criticism of the progressive movement stating that "They really did see that the Constitution was obsolete. They believed it was obsolete."
Later in the interview, Kennedy stated his concern that "we're living almost in a post-Constitutional age today. There is little respect for the Constitution."
Views on the George W. Bush Administration
In November 2001, Brian T. Kennedy wrote in Investor's Business Daily, "the U.S. government knows with certainty that nations such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Libya are spending billions of dollars to build or acquire ballistic missiles with which to attack and blackmail America. Such evidence is rejected, of course, by some of the great "minds" of our time. In a November 12 letter to Congress from the Federation of American Scientists, 50 Nobel laureates downplayed the threat from rogue states." Kennedy went on to criticize such views.
Although Kennedy was a strong advocate of U.S. military intervention in Iraq he was also very critical of the Bush administrations handling of the Iraqi venture. "We're considered a conservative organization, but we have written some of the most serious criticism of the administration' and its handling of the war on terrorism", Kennedy told a reporter during a dinner in September 2002.
Publications
*[http://www.claremont.org/publications/pubid.653/pub_detail.asp "Protecting Our Nation:The Urgent Need for Ballistic Missile Defense"] January 1, 2002
*[http://www.claremont.org/projects/pageid.1880/default.asp "The ABM Treaty is Gone, What Now?"] June 15, 2002
*"Basketball and America" January 20, 2003
*"The War for Iraq" March 20, 2003
*"Retaliation Guaranteed" April 15, 2004
*"Independent Working Group Issues Major Report on Ballistic Missile Defense" July 10, 2006
*"Making Americans" July 16, 2007
*"Iran's Proxy War Against America by Thomas Joscelyn" (Foreword by Kennedy) September 11, 2007
*"Securing the Future" May 23, 2008
*[http://www.claremont.org/publications/pubid.768/pub_detail.asp "Understanding the Need for a National Missile Defense After 9/11"] September 11, 2008
*"What a Single Nuclear Warhead Could Do" November 24, 2008
*"Japanese Missile Defense Matters" November 9, 2009
*"Remembering Winston Churchill" November 30, 2009
*Shariah: The Threat To America: An Exercise In Competitive Analysis (Report of Team B II), (Center for Security Policy, 2010) (Kennedy served as a Primary Contributor)
Speaking Engagements/Interviews

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See Also

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