Cynthia Cook

Director, Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group and Senior Fellow, International Security Program
Cynthia Cook

Cynthia Cook is director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group and a senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Her research interests include defense acquisition policy and organization, the defense-industrial base, new technology development, and weapon systems production and sustainment. Dr. Cook is a member of the editorial board for the Defense Acquisition Research Journal and is an adjunct professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. From 1997 to 2021, Dr. Cook worked as a senior management scientist at RAND, where she oversaw, led, and worked on a wide range of studies for components across the U.S. Department of Defense, along with the Australian Department of Defense and the UK Ministry of Defense. Previously, Dr. Cook was a research specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working on the Lean Aerospace Initiative. Before her graduate studies, Dr. Cook worked in New York as an investment banker, specializing in high-yield finance. She holds a PhD in sociology from Harvard University and a BS in management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

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Transatlantic Defense during Wartime

Transatlantic defense is at a key juncture as Russia's war in Ukraine has brought greater unity but also thrown into relief the challenges of producing military capability. The European Union and NATO have an opportunity to build on their strengths to address this crisis.

Report by Cynthia Cook, Max Bergmann, Mark F. Cancian, Gregory Sanders, Sissy Martinez, Otto Svendsen, and Nicholas Velazquez — September 5, 2023

Global Security Forum 2023: Transatlantic Defense

The 2023 Global Security Forum, the CSIS International Security Program’s flagship annual conference, took place on April 5, 2023. This year’s conference theme was transatlantic defense and featured a keynote address by Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Christopher W. Grady.

Event — April 5, 2023

Bolstering Collective Resilience in Europe

Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine puts the necessity for European resilience into sharper focus. This brief argues for a new framing of NATO’s approach to resilience to amplify allies’ combined capacity to tackle shared challenges and threats.

Brief by Anna Dowd and Cynthia Cook — December 9, 2022

Destruction, Subversion, and the Long War

As the war in Ukraine continues, CSIS's Cynthia Cook argues that both sides have increasingly moved to cost-imposing strategies, and the war will end when one side decides that its costs are too great to bear.

Commentary by Cynthia Cook — May 3, 2022