DiscoverAmerican UniversityThe Alexander Hamilton Society


The Alexander Hamilton Society
American University
Who We Are The Alexander Hamilton Society (AHS) is a non-partisan, not-for-profit, national organization that seeks to identify, educate, and launch young men and women into foreign policy and national security careers imbued with the Hamiltonian perspective of strong and principled American leadership in global affairs. Founded in March 2010 by Professor Aaron Friedberg of Princeton University, Daniel Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute, and Roy Katzovicz of Saddle Point Group LLC, we were established to confront U.S. foreign, economic, and national security policy failures at their source — universities — and to provide our students with the experiences they would otherwise not gain, in all the fields from which they will influence U.S. policy. We supply what American higher education lacks: vital, constructive programming that is critical to the intellectual and professional development of a new generation of American leaders. With the world more chaotic and dangerous today than it has been in a half-century, we seed the ground for the future of American foreign policy. What We Believe An appreciation that the world remains a dangerous place in which our power must be exercised with prudence, and where the primary threats to our security come from states that deny freedom to their own people and from non-state actors who embrace hatred and violence; A conviction, rooted in the history of the last century, that the world is a better, safer, and more prosperous place when the United States is willing and able to lead; and a commitment to maintaining the moral authority and material strength on which that leadership rests; A measured pride in the success of the American experiment; an understanding that America’s greatness is the result of its commitment to individual liberty, limited government, economic freedom, the rule of law, human dignity, and democracy; and a belief that the fundamental aim of every aspect of our policy, foreign and domestic, must be to defend these principles at home and ultimately to encourage their spread abroad; A clear recognition that, in such a world, our true friends and reliable partners are other democratic nations with whom we share an enduring commonality of values, and not simply a temporary convergence of interests; A firm belief that, time and again, in peace and in war, the ability of the American political system to profit from vigorous public discussion has proved its worth; and that, at this moment in our history, our public discussion of foreign, economic, and national security policy stands very much in need of renewal. The Alexander Hamilton Society is open to all students. American University student organizations shall not discriminate in membership or benefits on the basis of any individual’s personal identity or characteristics, including but not limited to race, color, national origin (or shared ancestry), religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, disability, or veteran status.