Kathleen McInnis

Senior Fellow, International Security Program and Director, Smart Women, Smart Power Initiative
Image
Kathleen Mcinnis

Kathleen J. McInnis is a senior fellow and director of the Smart Women, Smart Power Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Her research areas include the intersection of gender and national security; global security strategy; defense policy; and transatlantic security. Before rejoining the Center, she served as a specialist in international security at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), where she served as a senior expert to Congress on strategic issues including defense policy, military operations, civilian-military relations, irregular warfare, and global strategy. Prior to CRS, she worked as a research consultant at Chatham House in London, writing on NATO and transatlantic security matters. From 2006 to 2009, Dr. McInnis served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy), working on NATO operations in Afghanistan. During her last time working at CSIS from 2004 to 2006, Dr. McInnis analyzed U.S. nuclear weapons strategy, European security, and transatlantic relations. She also worked as a researcher in the UK House of Commons, focusing on NATO, the European Union, and U.S.-UK political-military relations, from 2001 to 2003. Dr. McInnis is widely published; her articles have featured in major domestic and international outlets. She is the author of two books: How and Why States Defect from Contemporary Military Coalition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and the novel The Heart of War: Misadventures in the Pentagon (Post Hill Press, 2018). Dr. McInnis was awarded her MSc in international relations from the London School of Economics and completed her PhD in war studies at King’s College London.

In the News