Front & Center with John Callaway: Congratulations, You Won... What Now? U.S. Presidential Election Special

By November 6, 2008 the votes would be cast and the results would be in—after eight years, the United States would have a new President. But after all of the pomp and circumstance, what would be next for America's new Commander-in-Chief? What early challenges would he face abroad, and what foreign policy decisions would figure in his agenda? John Callaway and his panel of experts looked ahead at the new administration on Front & Center.

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He graduated from West Point in 1970 and then served five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He then started graduate school in political science at Cornell University in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in 1980. He spent the 1979-1980 academic year as a research fellow at the Brookings Institution and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs from 1980 to 1982. During the 1998-1999 academic year, he was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Mearsheimer has written extensively about security issues and international politics more generally. He has published four books: Conventional Deterrence (1983), which won the Edgar S. Furniss, Jr., Book Award; Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (1988); The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), which won the Joseph Lepgold Book Prize; and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007). He has also written many articles that have appeared in academic journals like International Security, and popular magazines like The London Review of Books. Furthermore he has written a number of op-ed pieces for the New York Times dealing with topics like Bosnia, nuclear proliferation, American policy towards India, the failure of Arab-Israeli peace efforts, and the folly of invading Iraq.

Mearsheimer has won a number of teaching awards. He received the Clark Award for Distinguished Teaching when he was a graduate student at Cornell in 1977, and he won the Quantrell Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Chicago in 1985. In addition, he was selected as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for the 1993-1994 academic year. In that capacity, he gave a series of talks at eight colleges and universities. In 2003, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Celina B. Realuyo is President of CBR Global Advisors, an international strategic consulting firm providing innovative solutions to global challenges. Realuyo has almost two decades of international experience in the public and private sectors, with extensive expertise in national security affairs, enterprise and geopolitical risk management, international banking, counterterrorism finance and anti-money laundering, business development, and public advocacy. As Assistant Professor of Counterterrorism at the National Defense University, she educates top U.S. and foreign military and civilian leaders on national security policy and counterterrorism strategies.

From 2002-2006, Realuyo served as the Director of Counterterrorism Finance Programs in the U.S. Secretary of State's Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism in Washington, D.C. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, she returned to government service to apply her international banking skills to the financial front of the war on terror. She managed a multimillion dollar foreign assistance program aimed at safeguarding financial systems against terrorist financing. Under her stewardship, the U.S. delivered training and technical assistance to over 20 countries across four continents, training over 1800 foreign counterparts, and her team received an "A-" from the 9/11 Commission for their efforts to combat terrorist financing in 2005. Previously, she had a distinguished career as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer serving as a political officer abroad in Madrid, Panama, and the U.S. Mission to NATO, Brussels. In Washington, Realuyo served at the highest levels of government, in the State Department Operations Center, National Security Council's White House Situation Room, and as Special Assistant to the Secretary of State.

John E. Scully is a retired Group Senior Vice President in the Human Resources Department for ABNAMRO North America, Inc. In this capacity, he was responsible for human resources services for the LaSalle Bank Commercial Lending and Corporate Staff.

Scully joined The Exchange National Bank of Chicago in December 1987 as first vice president and director of human resources, responsible for recruiting, training and development, employee relations and compensation and benefits. (The Exchange was acquired by ABN AMRO in January 1990.) Prior employers were The Northern Trust Company (1968 - 1979) and First National Bank of Chicago (1980 - 1987).

He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1964 and then earned his master's degree from DePaul University in 1966. He retired from the United States Army Reserve in September 1996 as a Major General, having served as Commanding General of the 102nd Army Reserve Command, St. Louis, Mo., and he also served as Commander of the 425th Transportation Brigade. He has received numerous Army medals and commendations.

Active in civic affairs, Scully is Chair, Illinois Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve; and is a trustee of the Village of Riverside. He is president of the Armed Forces Council of Chicago, past president of the Notre Dame Club of Chicago, past president of the USO of Illinois, Inc., and past president of the Union League Club of Chicago. He currently is on the executive committee of the USO of Illinois, Inc.

Scully resides in Riverside, Ill., with his wife, Judy. They have raised three children.