Marathon is funded by private individuals and foundations, as well as by grants from or contract work for the U.S. Government. We do not seek or accept funding from corporations or from foreign sources.¹⁾

Elbridge Colby is co-founder and principal of The Marathon Initiative, a policy initiative focused on developing strategies to prepare the United States for an era of sustained great power competition.

Previously, Colby was from 2018-2019 the Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, where he led the Center’s work on defense issues.

Before that, he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development from 2017-2018. In that role, he served as the lead official in the development and rollout of the Department’s preeminent strategic planning guidance, the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS).

The NDS focuses the Department on the challenges to U.S. military superiority posed by China in particular as well as Russia and therefore prioritizes sustaining the Joint Force’s warfighting edge against these major power competitors. He also served as the primary Defense Department representative in the development of the 2017 National Security Strategy.

Prior to this, Colby was from 2014 to 2017 the Robert M. Gates Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. From 2010 to 2013 he was principal analyst and division lead for global strategic affairs at CNA.

Earlier in his career he served for over five years in the U.S. Government working on a range of strategic forces, arms control, WMD, and intelligence reform matters, including service with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2003 and with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence ODNI during its stand-up in 2005-2006. Colby has also served on the staff of a number of government commissions, including the 2014 National Defense Panel, the 2008-2009 Strategic Posture Commission, and the 2004-2005 President’s WMD Commission.

Colby’s work has appeared in outlets such as Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, and Survival.

He is also the author of many book chapters, reports, and articles on defense and foreign policy issues, and co-edited a volume on Strategic Stability: Contending Interpretations. He has testified a number of times before Congress and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Colby is a recipient of the Distinguished and Exceptional Public Service Awards from the Department of Defense and of the Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards from the Department of State. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Colby is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School. ²⁾

Dr. A. Wess Mitchell is co-founder and principal at The Marathon Initiative, a policy initiative focused on developing strategies to prepare the United States for an era of sustained great power competition.

Previously, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2017 to 2019. In this role, he was responsible for diplomatic relations with the 50 countries of Europe and Eurasia, as well as the institutions of NATO, the EU, and OSCE.

At State Department, Mitchell played a principal role in formulating Europe strategy in support of the 2017 National Security Strategy and 2018 National Defense Strategy, led the Interagency in building instruments to counter Russian and Chinese influence in Europe, and spearheaded new diplomatic initiatives for Central Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Western Balkans.

Prior to joining the State Department, Mitchell cofounded and served as President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Mitchell is the author of numerous articles and reports that have been translated into more than a dozen languages.

His work has appeared in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Washington Post, American Interest, National Interest, Orbis, and Internationale Politik.

He is the author of three books, including Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies and the Crisis of American Power (with Jakub J. Grygiel) and most recently, The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire (Princeton University Press, 2018).

Mitchell holds a doctorate in political science from the Otto Suhr Institut für Politikwissenschaft at Freie Universität in Berlin, a master’s degree from the Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he received the 2004 Hopper Award, and a bachelor’s degree in history from Texas Tech University.

During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Mitchell served on the national security team of Gov. Mitt Romney. From 2013 to 2016, he chaired the Europe Working Group of the John Hay Initiative.

He has been awarded the Gold Medal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic, the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Hungary, the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, and the Stanton Foundation Prize for writing in Applied History.

Mitchell formerly served as a senior advisor to the Secretary of State. He currently serves as the vice chairman of the board of directors at CEPA, senior advisor at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Non-Resident Fellow in the Applied History Project at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center. He is also a member of the International Advisory Council at Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics.

In 2020, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg appointed Mitchell to co-chair, with former German Minister of Defense Thomas de Maiziere, the NATO Forward Looking Reflection Group, a ten-member consultative body charged with providing recommendations on the future of NATO.

A sixth generation Texan, Mitchell lives with his family in Virginia.³⁾

Matt Pottinger is a Senior Advisor at the Marathon Initiative and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Pottinger previously served at the White House for four years in senior roles on the National Security Council staff, including as Deputy National Security Advisor from 2019 to 2021. In that role, he coordinated the full spectrum of national security policy. Before that he served as Senior Director for Asia, where he led the administration’s work on Asia, and in particular its shift on China policy.(profile in wiki)