Margot van Loon is a Junior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. She conducts research, editing, and analysis in support of multiple AFPC publications. She currently serves as the Project Coordinator for AFPC's World Almanac of Islamism. A graduate of American University, her research focuses on U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy. Her commentary has appeared in U.S. News and World Report.
Margot van Loon is a Junior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. She conducts research, editing, and analysis in support of multiple AFPC publications. She currently serves as the Project Coordinator for AFPC's World Almanac of Islamism. A graduate of American University, her research focuses on U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy. Her commentary has appeared in U.S. News and World Report.
Margot van Loon is a Junior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. She conducts research, editing, and analysis in support of multiple AFPC publications. She currently serves as the Project Coordinator for AFPC's World Almanac of Islamism. A graduate of American University, her research focuses on U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy. Her commentary has appeared in U.S. News and World Report.
Margot van Loon is a Junior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. She conducts research, editing, and analysis in support of multiple AFPC publications. She currently serves as the Project Coordinator for AFPC's World Almanac of Islamism. A graduate of American University, her research focuses on U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy. Her commentary has appeared in U.S. News and World Report.
Margot van Loon is a Junior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. She conducts research, editing, and analysis in support of multiple AFPC publications. She currently serves as the Project Coordinator for AFPC's World Almanac of Islamism. A graduate of American University, her research focuses on U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy. Her commentary has appeared in U.S. News and World Report.
In 2009, Ms. Balling founded Fundación ECCO, a Colombian-registered nonprofit organization that promoted democracy and youth leadership in areas of conflict. She executed projects in areas where the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) insurgency operated, working with the Colombian Army, Air Force and the National Police. She received grants from USAID, U.S. Special Operations Command South, the International Organization for Migration and Spirit of America.
From 2013 to 2014, Ms. Balling served as a Subject Matter Expert to the U.S. Special Operations South commander and partnered with U.S. Army Civil Affairs teams downrange in Colombia. In this role, she interviewed numerous female demobilized FARC and ELN (National Liberation Army) fighters and worked with the Colombian military’s demobilization group to create the first tactical guide on individual demobilization. In 2015, Ms. Balling was pinned by the Colombian Minister of Defense with the Colombian Armed Forces’ “Medal of Distinguished Service.”
In 2016 and 2017, Ms. Balling organized and led two solo expeditions to Iraqi Kurdistan to deliver humanitarian aid and embed with a company of female Yazidi peshmerga soldiers who survived the 2014 genocide by ISIS.
From 2015 to 2020, Ms. Balling was the Senior Fellow for Latin American Affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council. She has published articles in Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, the Small Wars Journal and Thehill.com. She has lectured at the Escuela Superior de Guerra in Bogotá, the National Defense University’s William J. Perry Center, the Institute of World Politics and Harvard Summer School. In 2019, Ms. Balling testified as an expert witness at a Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee hearing on U.S./Colombia relations.
Ms. Balling received her B.A.in English Literature at Barnard College, Columbia University and earned an Executive M.A. in National Security Affairs at the Institute of World Politics. She serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Universidad El Bosque in Bogotá, Colombia and is a 2020 recipient of the Phillips Academy Andover Alumni Award of Distinction.
Rachel is a Program Manager at the Center for a Secure and Free Society (SFS). She first joined SFS in 2014 as an undergraduate intern in the Fund for American Studies Institute on Economics and International Affairs program. As an intern, Rachel worked on translation of policy reports and op-eds on Latin American politics and the production of the 2014 book “Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America."
Following her internship at SFS, Rachel worked with the US Consulate in Guadalajara, MX as an intern in the US Department of State’s Virtual Student Foreign Service Program, researching economic and political data in Mexico and creating reports for the consulate. In 2015, she graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southern California with bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and Linguistics, and was awarded the Senior Recognition Award for Service to the Department by the USC Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Rachel continues to work as a translator with Latin American investigative journalists and contributed to research on the 2016 special report “After Nisman: How the death of a prosecutor revealed Iran’s growing influence in the Americas” by SFS Executive Director Joseph Humire.
Rachel has been certified by the Spanish government as fluent in Spanish at the B2 level, and has lived and worked in Spain and Mexico.
Jon B. Perdue is the author of The War of All the People: The Nexus of Latin American Radicalism and Middle Eastern Terrorism published by Potomac Books in May 2012. Perdue is a noted scholar and researcher on issues of international terrorism, human rights, strategic communication, and peripheral asymmetric warfare. Mr. Perdue serves as the Senior Fellow for Strategic Research at the Center for a Secure Free Society, a Washington, DC think tank focused on economics and security, and as the Director of Latin America Programs at The Fund for American Studies. He co-edited the book Rethinking the Reset Button: Understanding Contemporary Russian Foreign Policy, and also wrote the foreword.
Mr. Perdue’s articles have been published in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Times, Investors Business Daily, and the Miami Herald, as well as a variety of newspapers in Latin America. In 2010, Mr. Perdue served as an expert witness in a precedent-setting human rights trial in the Miami Circuit Court, and in 2009 he traveled to Honduras as part of a senior U.S. delegation to take part in the historic Honduran presidential elections as an international observer.
Jon B. Perdue is the author of The War of All the People: The Nexus of Latin American Radicalism and Middle Eastern Terrorism published by Potomac Books in May 2012. Perdue is a noted scholar and researcher on issues of international terrorism, human rights, strategic communication, and peripheral asymmetric warfare. Mr. Perdue serves as the Senior Fellow for Strategic Research at the Center for a Secure Free Society, a Washington, DC think tank focused on economics and security, and as the Director of Latin America Programs at The Fund for American Studies. He co-edited the book Rethinking the Reset Button: Understanding Contemporary Russian Foreign Policy, and also wrote the foreword.
Mr. Perdue’s articles have been published in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Times, Investors Business Daily, and the Miami Herald, as well as a variety of newspapers in Latin America. In 2010, Mr. Perdue served as an expert witness in a precedent-setting human rights trial in the Miami Circuit Court, and in 2009 he traveled to Honduras as part of a senior U.S. delegation to take part in the historic Honduran presidential elections as an international observer.
Douglas Farah is president of IBI Consultants LLC and a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. For twenty years, he was a foreign correspondent and investigative reporter at the Washington Post, where he won numerous awards for his work. In addition to his national security consulting work he is a regular lecturer at universities, government agencies and foreign policy groups. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, has written two books and numerous articles and monographs.
Jacob Zenn is an analyst of African and Eurasian Affairs for The Jamestown Foundation and author of the Occasional Report entitled “Northern Nigeria’s Boko Haram: The Prize in al-Qaeda’s Africa Strategy,” published by The Jamestown Foundation in November 2012. In 2012, he conducted field research in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon on the socio-economic factors behind the Boko Haram insurgency. Mr. Zenn earned a J.D. from Georgetown Law, where he was a Global Law Scholar, and a graduate degree in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins SAIS Center for Chinese-American Studies in Nanjing, China. He has spoken at international conferences on Boko Haram and is frequently interviewed and cited in international media.
Jacob Zenn is an analyst of African and Eurasian Affairs for The Jamestown Foundation and author of the Occasional Report entitled “Northern Nigeria’s Boko Haram: The Prize in al-Qaeda’s Africa Strategy,” published by The Jamestown Foundation in November 2012. In 2012, he conducted field research in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon on the socio-economic factors behind the Boko Haram insurgency. Mr. Zenn earned a J.D. from Georgetown Law, where he was a Global Law Scholar, and a graduate degree in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins SAIS Center for Chinese-American Studies in Nanjing, China. He has spoken at international conferences on Boko Haram and is frequently interviewed and cited in international media.
Jacob Zenn is an analyst of African and Eurasian Affairs for The Jamestown Foundation and author of the Occasional Report entitled “Northern Nigeria’s Boko Haram: The Prize in al-Qaeda’s Africa Strategy,” published by The Jamestown Foundation in November 2012. In 2012, he conducted field research in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon on the socio-economic factors behind the Boko Haram insurgency. Mr. Zenn earned a J.D. from Georgetown Law, where he was a Global Law Scholar, and a graduate degree in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins SAIS Center for Chinese-American Studies in Nanjing, China. He has spoken at international conferences on Boko Haram and is frequently interviewed and cited in international media.
Jacob Zenn is an analyst of African and Eurasian Affairs for The Jamestown Foundation and author of the Occasional Report entitled “Northern Nigeria’s Boko Haram: The Prize in al-Qaeda’s Africa Strategy,” published by The Jamestown Foundation in November 2012. In 2012, he conducted field research in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon on the socio-economic factors behind the Boko Haram insurgency. Mr. Zenn earned a J.D. from Georgetown Law, where he was a Global Law Scholar, and a graduate degree in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins SAIS Center for Chinese-American Studies in Nanjing, China. He has spoken at international conferences on Boko Haram and is frequently interviewed and cited in international media.
Christopher Deliso is an American journalist and author concentrating on the Balkans. Over the past decade, Chris has established a dedicated presence in the Balkans, and published analytical articles on related topics in numerous relevant media outlets, such as UPI, the Economist Intelligence Unit, and Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst and Jane's Intelligence Digest. Chris is also the founder and director of the Balkan-interest news and current affairs website, www.balkanalysis.com, and the author of The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West (Praeger Security International, 2007).
Christopher Deliso is an American journalist and author concentrating on the Balkans. Over the past decade, Chris has established a dedicated presence in the Balkans, and published analytical articles on related topics in numerous relevant media outlets, such as UPI, the Economist Intelligence Unit, and Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst and Jane's Intelligence Digest. Chris is also the founder and director of the Balkan-interest news and current affairs website, www.balkanalysis.com, and the author of The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West (Praeger Security International, 2007).
Christopher Deliso is an American journalist and author concentrating on the Balkans. Over the past decade, Chris has established a dedicated presence in the Balkans, and published analytical articles on related topics in numerous relevant media outlets, such as UPI, the Economist Intelligence Unit, and Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst and Jane's Intelligence Digest. Chris is also the founder and director of the Balkan-interest news and current affairs website, www.balkanalysis.com, and the author of The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West (Praeger Security International, 2007).
Christopher Deliso is an American journalist and author concentrating on the Balkans. Over the past decade, Chris has established a dedicated presence in the Balkans, and published analytical articles on related topics in numerous relevant media outlets, such as UPI, the Economist Intelligence Unit, and Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst and Jane's Intelligence Digest. Chris is also the founder and director of the Balkan-interest news and current affairs website, www.balkanalysis.com, and the author of The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West (Praeger Security International, 2007).