FACULTY | Barry R. Posen
Biography
Barry R. Posen is Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT, Director of the MIT Security Studies Program (http://web.mit.edu/ssp/), and serves on the Executive Committee of Seminar XXI (http://semxxi.mit.edu/). He has written two books, 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, and most recently Visiting Fellow at the John Sloan Dickey Center at Dartmouth College.
Research
Professor 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 U.S. 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?
Recent Publications
"Restraining Order," The American Interest , Vol. 3, No. 3, January-February 2008, pp. 94-97.
The New York Times, letter to the editor, November 23, 2007, on the Violence in Iraq.
"The Case for Restraint," The American Interest, Vol. 3, No. 1, November-December 2007.
"Stability and Change in U.S. Grand Strategy," Orbis, Vol. 51, No. 4, October 2007, pp. 561-567.
"A Nuclear-Armed Iran: A Difficult but Not Impossible Policy Problem," The Century Foundation, 2006.
Subjects
17.462 Innovation in Military Organizations (Syllabus)
17.468 Foundations of Security Studies (Syllabus)
17.478 Great Power Military Intervention (Syllabus)
17.482-3 U.S. Military Power (Syllabus)
17.484 Comparative Grand Strategy and Military Doctrine (Syllabus)
17.951 Intelligence: Practices, Problems and Prospects (Syllabus)
