Scowcroft, Brzezinski for McCain’s first hearing

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced Friday that two luminaries of the foreign policy establishment will be the main attractions at the committee’s first full hearing. 

Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser under President Carter, will testify to the committee on Jan. 21. 

{mosads}McCain, who took the chairman’s gavel as the new Congress began, often gives voice to a more interventionist approach than the Obama administration on issues ranging from Afghanistan and Iraq to Ukraine. 

He will likely discuss those topics, among others, with the elder statesmen. 

McCain makes no secret of the fact that he is at odds with Republicans who have a more isolationist stance on foreign policy, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.). As committee chairman, McCain will have an elevated platform from which to advance his own views. 

The Arizona Republican had originally scheduled his first hearing for Jan. 13 with another leading foreign policy figure, Henry Kissinger, who was national security adviser and secretary of State under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. 

That hearing was canceled after Kissinger fractured his shoulder. 

Currently, Scowcroft is president of the Scowcroft Group while Brzezinski is counselor and trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.