Faculty + Scholars

Barry

Posen

Ford International Professor of Political Science
Former Director, Security Studies Program

posen@mit.edu

E40-463

617-253-8088

Website

Expertise:

Security studies (international security, grand strategy, use of force, military intervention, doctrine, organization and escalation), Middle East (US policy, Iran, Iraq), terrorism, Iran’s nuclear program, ethnic conflict, Cold War history

Extended Details

Biography

Barry R. Posen is Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT, director of the MIT Security Studies Program, and serves on the executive committee of MIT Seminar XXI. He has written three books, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy; Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks; and The Sources of Military Doctrine. The latter won two awards: the American Political Science Association's Woodrow Wilson Foundation Book Award and Ohio State University's Edward J. Furniss Jr. Book Award. He is also the author of numerous articles, including "The Case for Restraint," The American Interest, (November-December 2007) and "Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony," International Security, (Summer, 2003.) He has been a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow; Rockefeller Foundation International Affairs Fellow; guest scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow; Smithsonian Institution; Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States; Visiting Fellow at the John Sloan Dickey Center at Dartmouth College; Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress John W. Kluge Center; 2017 recipient of the International Securities Studies Section (ISSS) Distinguished Scholar Award; and most recently, a receipient of Notre Dame International Security Center's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Research

Barry Posen's principal research interest is US grand strategy and national security policy. He also focuses on US military strategy, force structure and capabilities, and force posture (the global distribution of US military forces.) First, what is the grand strategy today, how did we get here, and how well is it working? Second, what major trends in the world might speak to the need for change? Specific trends under examination are changes in the global distribution of material power; the political mobilization of large numbers of young people, especially as it relates to identity politics; and the diffusion of military technology and techniques that permit the weak to better tilt with the strong. Third, what might a changed US grand strategy and its associated military strategy and force structure, which would be more responsive to emerging trends, look like?

Publications

"Russia's Rebound," Foreign Affairs. January 4, 2023.

"Ukraine's Implausible Theories of Victory," Foreign Affairs. July 8, 2022.

"Hypotheses on the Implications of the Russia-Ukraine War," Defense Priorities, June 7, 2022.

"Can Russia and the West Survive a Nuclear Crisis in Ukraine?," The National Interest, May 13, 2022.

"A New Transatlantic Division of Labor Could Save Billions Every Year!," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 7, 2021.

"The transatlantic relationship: Radical reform is in the U.S. national interest," The Hague Center for Strategic Studies. August 26, 2021.

"Adopt a Grand Strategy of 'Restraint,'" Précis, Fall 2020/Winter 2021.

"Scarcity and Strategy: The Foreign Policy of the Biden Administration," Royal Institute for International Relations, December 7, 2020.

"Europe Can Defend Itself." Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Vol 62 No. 6, December 2020.

"Do Pandemics Promote Peace? Why Sickness Slows the March to War," Foreign Affairs, April 23, 2020.

"Courting War," Boston Review, March 20, 2020.

“Trump aside, what's the US role in NATO?,” The New York Times, March 10, 2019.

“Want NATO allies to boost defense spending? Don't build Fort Trump,” Defense One, December 18, 2018.

“This 9/11, end the Afghanistan War,” USA Today, September 10, 2018.

“The Rise of Illiberal Hegemony: Trump's Surprising Grand Strategy,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2018.

“The Price of War With North Korea,” The New York Times, December 6, 2017.

“Civil Wars and the Structure of World Power,” Daedalus, Vol. 146, No. 4, Fall 2017.

“It's Time to Make Afghanistan Someone Else's Problem,” The Atlantic, August 18, 2017.

“Syria Showdown: Will Trump Be Pressured into Putting Turkey First, America Second?” The National Interest, March 16, 2017.

“How to Think About Russia,” The National Interest, November 29, 2016.

“The High Costs and Limited Benefits of America’s Alliances,” The National Interest, August 7, 2016.

“Contain ISIS,” The Atlantic, November 20, 2015.

“Prelude to a Quagmire,” foreignpolicy.com, June 16, 2015.

“The Iraqi Army No Longer Exists,” Defenseone.com, June 7, 2015.

“Just Say No: America Should Avoid These Wars,” The National Interest, February 10, 2015.

“Western Interventions and Occupations as Threatened Orders,” written for the Collaborative Research Centre 923 Project on Threatened Orders, Tuebingen University, Germany, published in Aufruhr-Katastophe-Konkurrenz-Zerfall: Bedrohte Ordnungen als Thema der Kulturwissenschaften, Ewald Frie and Mischa Meier, editors, Mohr Siebeck: 2014.

“Guilt, Shame, Balts, Jews,” Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Aisan Legacies (Jackson School Publications in International Studies), Daniel Chirot, Gi-Wok Shin, and Daniel Sneider, editors, University of Washington Press, 2014.

“The Case for Doing Nothing in Iraq,” politico.com, June 16, 2014.

“Ukraine: Part of America’s ‘Vital Interests’? ” The National Interest, May 12, 2014.

“Roles and Mechanisms of Insurgency and the Conflict in Syria's War,” Project on Middle East Political Science, Briefing 22, December 2013.

“Pull Back: The Case for a Less Activist Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, January-February 2013.

“Identity, Rationality, and Emotion in the Processes of State Disintegration and Reconstruction,” Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics, Kanchan Chandra, ed., Oxford University Press, 2012.

Books