Frederick Kagan Frederick W . Kagan is an American resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute ( AEI ) , and a former professor of military history at the U . S . Military Academy at West Point . Biography . Kagan graduated from Hamden High School before earning a B . A . in Soviet and East European studies and a Ph . D . in Russian and Soviet military history , both from Yale University . He worked as an Assistant professor of military history at West Point from 1995 – 2001 and as an Associate professor of military history from 2001 – 2005 . The courses he taught at West Point included the history of military art , grand strategy , revolutionary warfare and diplomatic history . Kagan ' s brother is foreign policy analyst Robert Kagan , whose wife is Victoria Nuland , spokesperson for the United States Department of State . Frederick Kagan is married to Kimberly Kagan , president of the Institute for the Study of War . Frederick Kagan and his father Donald Kagan , who is a professor at Yale and a fellow at the Hudson Institute , together authored " While America Sleeps : Self - Delusion , Military Weakness , and the Threat to Peace Today " ( 2000 ) . The book argued in favor of a large increase in military spending and warned of future threats , including from a potential revival of Iraq ' s WMD program . Frederick along with his brother Robert Kagan , who is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group , and their father Donald , are all signatories to the Project for the New American Century manifesto titled " Rebuilding America ' s Defenses " ( 2000 ) . Influence . Kagan authored the " real Iraq Study Group " report as the AEI ' s rival to the ISG report of James Baker and Lee H . Hamilton in December 2006 . The AEI report , titled " Choosing Victory : A Plan for Success in Iraq " , was released on January 5 , 2007 , and Kagan was said to have won - over the ear of President George W . Bush , strongly influencing his subsequent " surge " plan for changing the course of the Iraq War . Along with retired Gen . Jack Keane , retired Col . Joel Armstrong , and retired Maj . Daniel Dwyer , Kagan is credited as one of the " intellectual architects " of the surge plan . According to " Foreign Policy " magazine , Kagan ' s essay , " We ' re Not the Soviets in Afghanistan , " influenced the strategic thinking of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates , that reportedly influenced Gates ' decision to support sending 30 , 000 additional troops to Afghanistan . Petraeus . In 2010 , U . S . Army General David H . Petraeus — appointed by President Barack Obama to head international forces in Afghanistan — hired Kagan as one of two experts on fighting corruption . An article in the Washington Post on 19 December 2012 discussed the relationship that the Kagans had with General Petraeus , and to a much lesser extent with his successor in July 2011 , Gen John R . Allen . It discussed various visits made by the Kagans from mid - 2010 including their having been given access to the Combined Joint Intelligence Operations Center in Petraeus ' headquarters . It commented on and raised questions about their sponsorship by Defense contractors through the American Enterprise Institute . It also detailed how the Kagans had become involved in Iraq in 2007 under an initiative by Gen . Stanley A . McChrystal , who was their first introduction to Afghanistan in 2010 .