Bert Mizusawa

Bert Kameaaloha Mizusawa (born January 1957) is a retired major general in the United States Army, serving in the Army from 1979 to 2015. Mizusawa also served in the United States Senate as a professional staff member and as a Senior Executive in the Pentagon, making him one of only a handful of individuals to serve at flag rank in the military as well as in both the legislative and executive branches. Mizusawa is also an attorney and is admitted to the bars of New York, the District of Columbia, Virginia and the United States Supreme Court. He is the Republican nominee for the 2026 United States Senate election in Virginia, facing off against incumbent Democrat Mark Warner.

Early life and education Mizusawa was born January 1957 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Mizusawa is the second of six sons born to George T. and Theodora Mizusawa. Mizusawa's father met his mother in Europe while serving in the United States Army. On June 6, 1979, Mizusawa received his bachelor's degree from then Deputy Secretary of Defense, Charles W. Duncan, Jr., and graduated as the "number one man"—first in his class.

Harvard

Mizusawa attended Harvard Law School and graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1989. He also received a Master of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government and was twice selected as a MacArthur Fellow in International Security. While at Harvard, he interned with the United States Attorneys' Counterdrug Task Force.

Career Mizusawa while visiting the Multi National Base Tarin Kot in 2012. Graduating as top man on the list, Mizusawa received his first choice in the USMA Corps of Cadets' branch drawings—infantry.

Captain As a captain, Mizusawa, an Airborne Ranger, served as a paratrooper in Italy with the 1-509th Airborne Battalion Combat Team and commanded the Army's most forward-deployed combat unit, the Joint Security Force, in the Korean DMZ. He later served as the reserve assistant to the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and as commander of the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force-Afghanistan (CJIATF-A), which was awarded the Joint Meritorious Unit Award for its performance during Operation Enduring Freedom.

Civilian Mizusawa was an attorney with the Wall Street law firm Sullivan & Cromwell from 1990 to 1994, where he advised underwriters on complex debt and equity issuances. He was lead attorney for the largest debt offerings in the world at the time, the World Bank's US$2.5 billion Global Bonds, which were issued simultaneously in New York, London and Tokyo. From 2001 to 2004, Mizusawa was president of Innovative Technology Application, Inc., a technology firm with multimedia and industrial security products. In 2004, Mizusawa founded Paxcentric, Inc., a technology and security consulting firm.

Government and politics From 1995 to 1998, Mizusawa was appointed as a Professional Staff Member on the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services, where he assisted the chairman with oversight of national defense. In 1996, he authored the GOP national security platform for the presidential campaign. In 1998, he was appointed as a three-star level Senior Executive in The Pentagon. In May 2016, during the 2016 Republican presidential primary process, Mizusawa endorsed the candidacy of Donald Trump and soon thereafter became a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. He authored the Trump doctrine for foreign policy, versions of which were published by USA Today online and in its print edition. Mizusawa was director of national security policy for the Presidential Transition Team. In 2018, he launched a campaign for the GOP nomination to challenge U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, but failed to collect enough signatures to make the ballot.

In early 2020, Mizusawa was appointed as a senior adviser for national security technology and business integration at the Central Intelligence Agency.

He is running in the 2026 United States Senate election in Virginia.

Articles Decentralized information age training: key to U.S. antiterrorism efforts. (Homeland Security) — (Sep. 2003) Colonel Mizusawa discusses the application of decentralized information age training in coping with the homeland security threat posed by terrorism in the U.S. Colonel Mizusawa also discusses the advantage of the application for city and country leadership; challenges in the deployment process; and drawbacks of Internet-based applications.

Mentions Dangerous Games: faces, incidents and casualties of the Cold War by James E. Wise, Jr., and Scott Baron. Naval Institute Press (2010): Annapolis, Maryland The Reagan Diaries edited by Douglas Brinkley. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation (2007): New York, New York (Referencing Soviet Defector Incident in Korean DMZ)