Editor of Defense News from 1998 to 2000, Hitchens has had a long career in journalism, with a focus on military, defense industry and NATO affairs. Her time at Defense News included five years as the newspaper's first Brussels bureau chief, from 1989 to 1993. From 1983 to 1988, she worked at Inside Washington Publishers on the group's environmental and defense-related newsletters, covering issues from nuclear waste to electronic warfare to military space.
 
She has had a long interest in security policy and politics, having served internships with Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, and with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels. Most recently, she was director of research at the British American Security Information Council, a think tank based in Washington and London.

Besides her duties as CDI director, Hitchens leads CDI’s Space Security Project in cooperation with the Secure World Foundation. The author of “Future Security In Space: Charting a Cooperative Course,” she also continues to write on space and nuclear arms control issues for a number of outside publications. She serves on the editorial board of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and is a member of Women in International Security and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.