Seth Jones Joins CSIS as the Harold Brown Chair
January 4, 2018
WASHINGTON, January 4, 2018: The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is pleased to announce that Seth G. Jones has joined CSIS as the Harold Brown Chair, director of the Transnational Threats Project (TNT), and a senior adviser in the International Security Program. The Transnational Threats Project was previously led by Thomas Sanderson, who will remain a non-resident senior associate and consultant to the program following his sixteen-year career with CSIS.A specialist in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, Dr. Jones comes to CSIS after serving as director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation. He previously served as the representative for the commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, to the assistant secretary of defense for special operations. Before that, he served as a plans officer and adviser to the commanding general, U.S. Special Operations Forces, in Afghanistan (Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command–Afghanistan). He is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
“Seth has a proven record of outstanding leadership as well as a superb reputation around Washington and the world,” said Dr. John J. Hamre, CSIS president and CEO. “As the director of TNT, he will spearhead CSIS’s study of terrorism threats and the impact of government responses to them.”
Dr. Jones’ expertise includes violent extremism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East, and North and East Africa. He also focuses on al Qaeda and Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) operations in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America.
“We are thrilled to have Seth joining the International Security Program as the Harold Brown Chair and a senior adviser,” said Dr. Kathleen Hicks, senior vice president, Henry A. Kissinger Chair, and director of the International Security Program at CSIS. “There’s no one more able to carry forward Dr. Brown’s legacy of analytic excellence.”
Dr. Jones is the author of A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland (W.W. Norton, forthcoming in 2018), Waging Insurgent Warfare (Oxford University Press, 2016), Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of al Qa'ida after 9/11 (W.W. Norton, 2012), In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan (W.W. Norton, 2009), and The Rise of European Security Cooperation (Cambridge University Press, 2007).He has published articles in a range of journals, such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and International Security, as well as in such newspapers and magazines as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.
He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.