Mary Beth Long

Mary Beth Long (born 1963) is a businesswoman and former U.S. Government official. In 2007, she became the first woman to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate for an Assistant Secretary of Defense position in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Long served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 2007-2009.

Long is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Pennsylvania State University. She studied in Taiwan attending the Taiwan National and Fu Ren Catholic Universities. She has a J.D. from Washington & Lee University School of Law.

Long served as an Operations Officer for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1986 to 1999. From 1999 to 2004, Long was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP. She returned to the U.S. Government from 2004-2009 and served in the Department of Defense. In 2004, she became Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counter-narcotics, and she served in that role until 2005.

From 2005-2007, Long was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and served as the Secretary’s advisor on Asia, South East Asia, Middle East, Africa and the Western Hemisphere (2005-2006); and later on Europe, the Middle East, Africa and NATO (2006-2007). In 2007, Long was Senate confirmed as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. She was the principal advisor to the Under Secretary of Policy and Secretary of Defense for the formulation and coordination of international security strategy and defense policy, with responsibility for the Middle East (including Iraq), Europe (including NATO in Afghanistan) and Africa. She was appointed Chairman of the High Level Committee responsible for NATO’s nuclear policy and reporting directly to the Secretary General of NATO in 2007.

After leaving public office Long worked as a senior executive at Xe/Blackwater owned by Erik Prince.

Since leaving Xe/Blackwater, Long founded her own company and has been the Principal at M B Long & Associates PLLC, a law firm specializing in international compliance. She also founded Metis Solutions, a government contracting company. Long also founded and is co-owner of Askari Defense & Intelligence LLC, an international consulting company. In 2014, she was cited as lobbying Congress to sell weapons to Libya, and has been tied to Khalifa Haftar.

Long was an advisor to the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012, and has been quoted as an expert on issues of national security and foreign policy during the 2016 election campaign. She is an advisor to NATO.

Long received the Department of Defense’s highest civilian awards, the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award; the National Guard Patriot Award; and numerous CIA performance awards.