Barry R. Posen

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 Seminar XXI, an educational program for senior military officers, government officials and business executives in the national security policy community. He has written two books, Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks and The Sources of Military Doctrine, which 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.. Dr. Posen's current research interests include U.S. national security policy, the security policy of the European Union, the organization and employment of military force, great power intervention into civil conflicts, and innovation in the U.S. Army, 1970-1980.

Courses

• 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)

Selected Publications

• Barry R. Posen, "Pull Back: The Case for a Less Activist Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs, January/February 2013.
• Barry R. Posen, "Overkill," (part of "The Containment Conundrum: How Dangerous is a Nuclear Iran?") Foreign Affairs, July/August 2010, pp. 160-163.
• Barry R. Posen, "Emerging Multipolarity: Why Should We Care?" Current History (November 2009) pp. 347-352.
• Barry R. Posen (with Eric Heginbotham, Nick Beldecos, Kevin Oliveau, Jonathan Ladinsky, Brian Nichiporuk, Eugene Gholz, and and Ken Pollack), Breakthroughs:  Armored Offensives in Western Europe, 1944.
• Barry R. Posen, "A Grand Strategy of Restraint and Renewal," testimony before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, July 15, 2008.
• Barry R. Posen, “Restraining Order,” The American Interest , Vol. 3, No. 3, January-February 2008, pp. 94-97.
• Barry Posen, The New York Times, letter to the editor, November 23, 2007, on the Violence in Iraq.
• Barry R. Posen, "The Case for Restraint," The American Interest, Vol. 3, No. 1, November-December 2007.
• Barry R. Posen, “Stability and Change in U.S. Grand Strategy,” Orbis, Vol. 51, No. 4, October 2007, pp. 561-567.
• Barry R. Posen, "A Nuclear-Armed Iran: A Difficult but Not Impossible Policy Problem," The Century Foundation, 2006.
• Barry Posen, "Command of the Commons. The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony" (PDF, 208 KB, pp. 43)
• Barry Posen, "Exit Strategy: How to disengage from Iraq in 18 months" Boston Review, January/February 2006.
• Barry Posen, "European Union Security and Defense Policy: Response to Unipolarity?" Security Studies, Volume 15, No. 2, April-June 2006 (pp. 149 - 186).
• Barry Posen, "The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict" Survival, vol. 35, no. 1, Spring 1993, pp. 27-47 (PDF, 1314KB)

Media Appearances

• Quoted extensively in an April 4, 2011 NPR article titled "Can 'Limited' US Engagement in Libya Stay Limited?"
• Quoted extensively in "Stand Alone: the case for a new isolationism," Boston Globe, February 6, 2011.
• July 28, 2009, WBUR's On Point. The topic: "Can the U.S. deter a nuclear Iran?"
• March 3, 2009, WBUR's On Point, The topic: "Obama's Antiwar Critics."
• April, 2009, quoted in the German magazine Griephan Global Security.
• May 21, 2008, Chicago Public Radio's Worldview, "A Realist Foreign Policy Prescription."
• May 13, 2008, Wisconsin Public Radio's Kathleen Dunn Show. Topic: The recent increase in violence in Sadr City, Iraq.
• April 1, 2008, WBUR On Point, "Basra: Defining Moment?"
• November 5, 2007, a blog entry at The Washington Note.com, titled "The Case for Restraint -- and Disaggregation" discussed Barry Posen's November 2007 article in The American Interest.
• October 24, 2007, Chris Lydon's "Open Source" radio show. The topic: Iraq and Iran. Click here to read about it and access audio links.
• October 22, 2007, KUOW, Seattle Public Radio. "Can the U.S. Live with a Nuclear Iran?"
• July 17, 2007, Minnesota Public Radio's Midmorning. The topic: Defining the Defense authorization bill.
• February 23, 2007, WBUR's Here and Now. The topic: "Another Cold War?" Click here to listen to the show.
• January 31, 2007, WBUR On Point. "Containing a Civil War in Iraq."
• January 15, 2007, Open Source. Topic:"Next Stop Iran?"
• January 10, 2007, New England Cable News' Chet Curtis Report. Topic: President Bush's Iraq policy speech. Click here to watch the clip.
• December 6, 2006, New England Cable News. Topic: the Iraq Study Group's report. Click here to access the broadcast.
• August 7, 2006, Minnesota Public Radio, "Midmorning," "Middle East crisis deepening"
• June 14, 2006, WBUR (Boston), "On Point," "Iraq Undercover"  
• May 16, 2006, NPR, "Morning Edition," "Weak Position Undermines Iran Nuclear Threat"
• May 8, 2006, Denmark's TV2, topic: Iraq
• April 27, 2006, BBC Radio, "The World," Coalition Report
• April 17, 2006, BBC World Update, topic: Iraq
• April 14, 2006, WBEZ (Chicago) "Worldview," "Iran—Can We Live with a Nuclear Iran?"
• April 12, 2006, WGBH (Boston) "Open Source," "Can We Live with a Nuclear Iran?"
• April 11, 2006, Minnesota Public Radio, "Midmorning," "Iraq's uncertain future"
• April 6, 2006, New England Cable News, "Newsnight", "Main Event: Iraq War"