Michael Makovsky
Foreign Policy Director
mmakovsky@bipartisanpolicy.org
Michael Makovsky joined the Bipartisan Policy Center as foreign policy director in 2006. His specialty is the intersection of international energy markets and politics with U.S. national security.
At BPC, Michael has managed projects on a new U.S. policy toward Iran’s nuclear development, a new U.S. strategy toward Russia, how to augment U.S. Government capacity in stabilizing fragile states such as Yemen, devising a new bipartisan U.S. foreign policy, and how to make strategic public diplomacy an effective tool of U.S. foreign policy in Egypt and elsewhere.
From 2002-2006, Michael served as special assistant for Iraqi energy policy in the Office of Secretary of Defense and Director of Essential Services in the Washington office of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the postwar Allied entity that governed Iraq. In those capacities, he advised senior Defense, National Security Council and Energy officials on Iraqi energy policy. Prior to his work in the Pentagon, Makovsky worked over a decade as a senior energy market analyst for various investment firms, focusing on markets and hedging strategies for oil, petroleum products, natural gas and electric power, as well as regulatory and tax issues. Makovsky is founder and president of MSM Consulting LLC, an energy and political risk consulting firm.
Michael has written articles and op-eds on Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and Middle Eastern energy and diplomatic issues for The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Weekly Standard, and The New Republic, and been interviewed on CNBC, Voice of America (Persian), and other media. He is also author of Churchill’s Promised Land (Yale U. Press, 2007), a diplomatic-intellectual history of Winston Churchill’s complex relationship with Zionism.
Makovsky has a Ph.D .in diplomatic history from Harvard University, an MBA in finance from Columbia Business School, and a B.A. in history from the University of Chicago.
Publications:
- Makovsky and Goldstein: The Real Oil Shock, The Weekly Standard, January 8, 2012
- Obama’s Iran policy shifts to containment, The Washington Post, December 11, 2011
- How Libya’s Energy Economy Can Avoid Iraq’s Mistakes, The New Republic, September 26, 2011
- Room for Growth, The New Republic, May 16, 2011
- Spring Trap: We can’t treat Yemen like the other Arab uprisings, The New Republic, March 31, 2011 (co-author)
- The Middle East’s New Energy Giant, The Weekly Standard, February 21, 2011
- Being Winston Churchill, The New Republic, December 8, 2010
- Makovsky and Goldstein: Iran, Oil, and the Carter Doctrine, The Weekly Standard, August 13, 2010
- Stick must remain an option to stop Iran, San Francisco Chronicle, March 21, 2010
- There Will Be Oil, The New Republic, January 27, 2010
- Iraq's Oil Progress, The Weekly Standard, August 29, 2008
- The Model for McCain?, The Weekly Standard, February 14, 2008
- Protecting Iraq's Oil, The Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2007
- Oil's Not Well in Iraq, The Weekly Standard, March 19, 2007
Testimony:
- House Committee on Foreign Relations' Subcommittee Hearing, “Shifting Sands: Political Transitions in the Middle East," April 14, 2011
Stay Connected
