Whitney Kassel is a foreign policy analyst based in New York City. Kassel spent four years with the secretary of defense, where she focused on special operations, counterterrorism, and Pakistan. She also served as a senior director focused on strategic analysis and risk management at The Arkin Group, a private intelligence firm.
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 20: President Donald Trump raises a fist after his inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. In today's inauguration ceremony Donald J. Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 27: Ivanka Trump, daughter of U.S. President Donald Trump, from right, Jessica Johnson, president of Johnson Security Bureau Inc., President Trump and Dyan Gibbens, founder and chief executive officer of Trumbull Unmanned, attend a meeting with women small business owners in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on March 27, 2017 in Washington, D.C. Investors on Monday further unwound trades initiated in November resting on the idea that the election of Trump and a Republican Congress meant smooth passage of an agenda that featured business-friendly tax cuts and regulatory changes. (Photo by Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump walks on stage after his daughter, Ivanka Trump, introduced him during the evening session on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Nadia Murad (center) testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in Washington on June 21, 2016. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Former heavyweight world boxing champion Muhammad Ali (C) prays on October 05, 1986 at the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha or Alabaster Mosque in Cairo, Egypt. (Photo credit should read MIKE NELSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Iraqi security forces and Shiite fighters from the Popular Mobilisation units gather next to a mural depicting the emblem of the Islamic State (IS) group outside one of the presidential palaces in Tikrit, on April 1, 2015, a day after the prime minister declared victory in the weeks-long battle to retake the city from the IS group. Iraqi forces battled the last jihadists the northern city on April 1, 2015 to seal a victory the government described as a milestone in efforts to rid the country of the Islamic State group. AFP PHOTO / AHMAD AL-RUBAYE (Photo credit should read AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images)
PARRIS ISLAND, SC - JUNE 22: Female Marine Corps recruits pratice drill at the United States Marine Corps recruit depot June 22, 2004 in Parris Island, South Carolina. Marine Corps boot camp, with its combination of strict discipline and exhaustive physical training, is considered the most rigorous of the armed forces recruit training. Congress is currently considering bills that could increase the size of the Marine Corps and the Army to help meet US military demands in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
