Welcome! I am Associate Professor of Security Studies in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, as well as Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, and Research Affiliate in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. My work examines nuclear deterrence and escalation, civil-military relations, military strategy and operations, and defense policy, with a particular focus on security issues in Asia and the Persian Gulf. I am author of the award-winning book, The Dictator's Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes (Cornell University Press, 2015), as well as co-author of U.S. Defense Politics: The Origins of Security Policy, now in its fourth edition (Routledge, 2021). I am currently on research leave from Georgetown University as the Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Kluge Center at the U.S. Library of Congress.
Header image: children playing on a captured M41 in Hue, Vietnam