John Noonan is Senior Counselor for Military & Defense Affairs with Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Chairman of the Air & Land Subcommittee, as well as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Noonan held senior positions on two presidential campaigns, national security advisor to Governor Jeb Bush's campaign for president, and as defense policy advisor to Governor Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential run. He spent years on the Professional Staff of the House Committee on Armed Services, working for both Chairmans Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-CA) and Mac Thornberry (R-TX) in passing the annual National Defense Authorization Act. Prior to his time on Congressional staff, Noonan was the Policy Director at the Foreign Policy Initiative. Noonan is a former United States Air Force officer, and received his commission from the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VA. As a nuclear launch officer for the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, Noonan pulled over 300 "alerts," 24-hour tours of duty, in missile alert command centers spread across Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado. He left service as an instructor on the Minuteman III REACT-A system.

Noonan was born to a Navy family at U.S. Naval Station in Rota, Spain, and attended both military high school and college.

His study group will analyze the intersection of national security and politics, as well as the shifting geopolitical dynamics that are reshaping the post-World War II international order.