Download Mike Vickers Dr. Michael Vickers is widely recognized as one of the

Mike Vickers
Dr. Michael Vickers is widely recognized as one of the nation’s top national security
professionals, with unprecedented senior tenure across Republican and Democratic
administrations. He was a key operational strategist for the two great wars of our time: the
operation in the 1980s to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan that helped bring an end to the
Cold War – the largest and most successful covert action program in the history of the CIA – and
the ongoing war with al-Qa’ida. He played a major policy and planning role in the operation
that killed Usama bin Ladin.
From January 2011 to May 2015, Vickers served as the Under Secretary of Defense for
Intelligence, the Chief Executive Officer of the Defense Intelligence Enterprise, an $80 billion,
180,000-person, global operation that includes the National Security Agency, Defense
Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office,
Defense Security Service, and the intelligence components of the Military Services and
Combatant Commands. As the USD(I), he conceived and led a comprehensive transformation
of defense intelligence capabilities.
From 2007 to 2011, he served as the first and only Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special
Operations, Low-Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities. As the ASD SO/LIC&IC,
Vickers served as the “Service” Secretary for all Special Operations Forces – a 70,000-person,
$10 billion enterprise with personnel deployed in 90 countries – and had policy oversight of all
of DoD’s core operational capabilities – strategic forces (nuclear forces, missile defense, space,
cyber), conventional forces (air, ground and maritime), and Special Operations Forces. He
conceived and led the largest expansion of Special Operations Forces in our nation’s history.
Earlier, during the nearly decade and a half that spanned the operational phase of his career, he
served as a Special Forces Non-Commissioned Officer, Special Forces Officer and CIA Operations
Officer, and had operational and combat experience in Central America and the Caribbean, the
Middle East, and South and Central Asia. As the principal strategist for the multi-billion dollar
effort that defeated the Red Army in Afghanistan, Vickers oversaw the policy, operations,
training, and logistics of a covert enterprise that spanned several continents.
Dr. Vickers has received the nation’s highest awards in the fields of intelligence and defense,
including the Presidential National Security Medal. He holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, an
MBA from the Wharton School, and a B.A. from the University of Alabama. He is currently
working on a memoir of his career, to be published by Knopf in 2018. He serves as a senior
advisor to a major private investment firm, and to In-Q-Tel, the Intelligence Community’s
venture capital arm. He also serves on several corporate, government and foundation boards.