Our Values
- Foreign Policy Starts at Home. Our government’s first responsibility is protecting the American people and homeland. That means securing our Southern Border, stopping the flow of fentanyl and deadly narcotics, ensuring our college campuses are free of anti-Semitism, and ending the CCP’s infiltration of our schools, phones, and businesses.
- Making America Safer, Stronger, and More Prosperous. U.S. actions overseas should deliver a return on investment for the taxpayer, align with our values, and advance our national interests. All policies should meet three core tests: make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous.
- We Maintain Peace With Deterrence, Not Retreat. America’s security increases when her enemies fear our response – not when they sense fear in us. We must maintain the strongest military in the world to address the most dangerous threats in the world and prevent us from ever needing to send our men and women in uniform into harm’s way.
- An America that Wins Helps the World. China and Russia dominate, intimidate, oppress, and invade their neighbors and collude with repressive regimes to undermine America. America’s strength prevents authoritarian aggression and makes the world safer. Our example, values, businesses and people bring peace, prosperity and flourishing across the world.
- Peace Through Strength is Reversing Biden’s Weakness. For four years, the Biden White House allowed U.S. deterrence to crumble and watched on as adversaries hid behind threats of nuclear escalation and their veto power at the United Nations. President Trump and his Administration are restoring America’s credibility and power on the world stage.
A New Way Forward
For decades, U.S. foreign policy has been failed by decades of myopic strategy by Washington’s political elite. America’s adversaries have exploited this naïveté to advance their interests at the expense of U.S. national security.
The Biden Administration accelerated this blunder, deviating from its core security mission by pursuing woke distractions and emboldening our adversaries with weakness. In four short years, the United States suffered a historic collapse of deterrence across the globe. After ushering in the Taliban’s conquest of Afghanistan thanks to its 2021 retreat, the Biden White House failed to prevent Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine while ignoring the millions of illegal migrants and flows of contraband smuggled across our Southern Border. It appeased the Iranian regime with sanctions relief and tens of billions of dollars in cash inflows, culminating in October 7, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
These failures made America less safe and our world more dangerous.
In 2024, Americans made clear they reject President Biden’s strategy of retreat and are desperate for U.S. leadership to end the chaos and restore order. President Trump inherited a more dangerous world than any leader in decades, but his foreign policy is making it safer by heeding the lesson of history: answering ‘War Through Weakness’ with ‘Peace Through Strength.’
Our Team
Cale Brown
Cale Brown served as the State Department’s Principal Deputy Spokesperson, where he helped coordinate messaging efforts across the Department from 2019 to 2021.
Before that, he was Director of Strategic Communications on the National Security Council Staff at the White House. There he was responsible for portfolios ranging from Weapons of Mass Destruction to African Affairs to the National Security Strategy of 2017, in addition to serving as senior advisor to the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor.
Cale served as an infantry officer in the US Army for 26 years, retiring as a colonel. While on active duty he led infantry units from platoon to battalion level. His assignments included teaching at the United States Military Academy, advising the Syria Ceasefire Task Force in Geneva, conducting peacekeeping operations in Egypt, and combat deployments to Afghanistan.
A graduate of West Point, Cale later earned master’s degrees from Tulane University and the National Defense University. He is also an alumnus of the MIT Seminar XXI Program.
Sebastian Borda
Sebastian Borda is a national security and foreign policy professional, currently serving as the Executive Director of POLARIS National Security, where he leads the organization’s strategy, policy development, and political engagement. He previously served as the organization’s Policy Director, overseeing projects spanning a wide range of foreign policy and defense topics, including America’s strategic competition with China, Middle East security, multilateral organizations, and more.
Sebastian worked on Capitol Hill from 2019-2022. Under U.S. Senator James Lankford, he served as a Legislative Correspondent, advancing the Senator’s legislative priorities on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPS) and advising on the foreign affairs budget. Sebastian helped secure and negotiate provisions across multiple National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) cycles and supported the Senator’s engagement with senior officials at the State Department, Department of Defense, and foreign embassies.
Sebastian served as a Policy Consultant for the Trinity Forum, focusing on Christian formation initiatives and faith-based leadership programming for national security professionals. He has conducted research for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Previously, Sebastian also served on the Council of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy and has completed fellowships with both the Vandenberg Coalition and the Duke Center for Christianity and Scholarship.
Sebastian received his M.A. in Public Policy from Harvard University at the Kennedy School of Government. He earned a B.A. with highest honors in Public Policy Studies and Political Science from Duke University.
Blanton Newman
Blanton Newman is a Policy Associate at POLARIS National Security. Prior to joining POLARIS, he served under U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham as the senator’s bodyman, driver, and staff assistant in his Washington, D.C., legislative office, supporting day-to-day operations in a demanding environment. His responsibilities included helping manage and facilitate Senator Graham’s schedule, meetings, and travel logistics, as well as serving as a liaison to the White House, foreign diplomatic missions, military officials, and the U.S. Capitol Police. He also supported sensitive operations requiring effective communication, cross-functional collaboration, constituent and stakeholder engagement, and utmost discretion.
A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Blanton earned B.A. degrees in Religious Studies and Philosophy, with an emphasis in Law, Liberty, and Justice from Clemson University. He is currently pursuing an MBA at Clemson University alongside an M.A. in International Politics and Military Affairs at The Citadel.
Tara Spicer
Tara Spicer is a seasoned strategist with over 20 years of political experience. Tara is the Finance Director for Team Graham, Inc., the campaign committee for US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). She is a Partner in Strategic Partners of SC, a South Carolina based political firm specializing in issue management, fundraising and event planning – both corporate and political.
Since January 2019, Tara has led the finance operations for South Carolina’s senior Senator, Lindsey Graham. During the 2020 election cycle, Team Graham, Inc. raised a record $112 million in support of Senator Graham’s re-election campaign. This was achieved through national and in-state fundraising events coupled with unprecedented digital and direct mail fundraising. The South Carolina senate campaign was the most expensive race of all senate campaigns during the 2020 election cycle nationwide and set a new SC record for campaign spending.
In her role as Senator Graham’s Finance Director, Tara has worked on behalf of a number of conservative initiatives and campaigns that Senator Graham is close to, including POLARIS National Security, an advocacy organization that supports a strong America via peace through strength, and the 2024 Trump 47 Re-election Committee, among others.
John Noonan
John Noonan is a seasoned national security expert and defense strategist with a distinguished career spanning military service, legislative roles, and advisory positions in both governmental and private sectors.
In the Air Force, Noonan served as a nuclear launch officer for the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system. During his tenure, he completed over 300 alerts—24-hour tours of duty—in missile alert command centers across Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado. He advanced to the role of instructor on the Minuteman III REACT-A system before transitioning from active duty.
Following his military service, Noonan spent over a decade on Capitol Hill. He worked as a professional staff member on the House Armed Services Committee under Chairmen Howard “Buck” McKeon and Mac Thornberry, playing a pivotal role in crafting annual National Defense Authorization Acts. Noonan also served as National Security Advisor to Senator Tom Cotton, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
In the political arena, Noonan held senior advisory positions during two presidential campaigns: as national security advisor to Governor Jeb Bush and as defense policy advisor to Governor Mitt Romney.
He is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, where he earned a degree in military history and a commission in the United States Air Force.