The Trump doctrine: America First revisited

Jeffrey W. Legro, a Miller Center nonresident senior fellow, is university professor at the University of Richmond, where he was also the executive vice president and provost from 2017 to 2023. Before that he was the Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor and vice provost for global affairs at the University of Virginia. A specialist on international affairs, Legro is the author of numerous  books  and  articles, including  Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order and Cooperation Under Fire: Restraint During World War II. He co-edited  To Lead the World: American Strategy After the Bush Doctrine; Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World; and  In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy after the Berlin Wall and 9/11. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Richmond World Affairs Council. Legro holds a BA in Russian and economics from Middlebury College and an MA and PhD in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Stephen D. Mull, a Miller Center practitioner senior fellow, is vice provost for global affairs at the University of Virginia. Ambassador Mull has served in a broad range of U.S. national security positions, most recently as Acting Under Secretary for Political Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, working as the day-to-day manager of overall regional and bilateral policy issues, and overseeing the bureaus for Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, the Near East, South and Central Asia, the Western Hemisphere, and International Organizations. He was lead coordinator for Iran Nuclear Implementation from August 2015 until August 2017 and was the U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Poland and the Republic of Lithuania.

John M. Owen IV is a Miller Center faculty senior fellow and the Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. His latest book is The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order, which was awarded the 2025 Grawemeyer Award for World Order from the University of Louisville. He also is the author of Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American Politics and International Security and The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States, and Regime Change 1510-2010. A recipient of fellowships from Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton Universities, Owen is a member of the editorial board of International Security and a faculty fellow at the UVA Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He holds an AB from Duke University, an MPA from Princeton University, and a PhD from Harvard University.

Philip B. K. Potter, a Miller Center faculty senior fellow, is a professor of politics and founding director of the National Security Policy Center in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He is also a university expert with the National Ground Intelligence Center, U.S. Army INSCOM. Potter has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Politics and the Journal of Global Security Studies and is an associate principal investigator for Time-Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences (TESS). Potter has been a fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Mara Rudman is a professor of practice at the Miller Center, where she directs the Ripples of Hope Project, aimed at identifying practical approaches to help democratic leaders resolve key challenges. She previously served as a Miller Center Schlesinger Distinguished Professor and on the 2022 National Defense Strategy Commission. She serves on the Howard University College of Arts and Sciences board of advisors and consults for Democracy Forward. She was previously executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress, and her government positions have included serving as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs in the Obama and Clinton administrations; deputy envoy for the Office of the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace at the U.S. Department of State; assistant administrator for the Middle East at the U.S. Agency for International Development; and chief counsel to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She received an AB from Dartmouth College and a JD from Harvard Law School.

William J. Antholis has served as director and CEO of UVA's Miller Center of Public Affairs since January 2015. In that time, the Miller Center has strengthened its position as the leading nonpartisan research institution on the American presidency and worked with scholars across the University of Virginia to deliver vital research to policymakers and the public. Before coming to the Miller Center, Antholis served as managing director at the Brookings Institution from 2004 to 2014, working directly with Brookings's president and vice presidents. Antholis is the author of Inside Out India and China: Local Politics Go Global (2013) and co-author (with Strobe Talbott) of Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming (2010). He has published articles, book chapters, and opinion pieces on U.S. politics, U.S. foreign policy, international organizations, the G8, climate change, and trade.