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This conversation tackles one of the most consequential challenges facing the United States, the rise of China, and what it means for global security, deterrence, and the stability of the Indo-Pacific. Our guest is Dr. Tim Heath, Senior International Defense Researcher at the RAND Corporation and a recognized expert on Chinese strategy, civil-military relations, and regional security dynamics. He earned his PhD in Political Science right here at George Mason University.
Joining me as a co-host is Dr. John Gordon, an Adjunct Senior Defense Researcher at RAND and an instructional associate professor at Mason. John has decades of experience studying US military posture, joint operations, and force planning, bringing both practitioner and academic insight to our discussion. John also received his PhD from George Mason University. We’ll unpack what China is doing, what it probably won’t be doing, and how the US and young professionals and students at Mason should interpret what comes next. Gentlemen, welcome.
Thanks, David.
Unpacking The Biggest Misconception About Chinese Military
Let’s jump in. What does China’s buildup mean for all of us? Tim, let me ask you this. What’s the biggest misconception in the US public debate about China’s military ambitions?
One of the largest misconceptions that I encounter is the belief that the Chinese are postured and prepared to carry out aggression against either Taiwan or any of its neighbors. The Chinese military is large. It is modern. It is impressive in many ways, but there are no political indications that the leadership or the military is preparing to launch or initiate any aggression against Taiwan. That’s not to say that they’re building capabilities that can be used against Taiwan. That’s definitely true. It’s inaccurate to say that they’re postured and prepared to start a war over Taiwan. The military has a defensive posture, I would argue, regarding Taiwan.
You’re distinguishing between capabilities and real readiness. How combat-ready is the PLA?
That can be overstated as well. I don’t think they’re especially combat-ready. What they do have and what worries the Pentagon is a large suite of surface-to-air missiles and anti-ship missiles. These are deadly. They’re very effective. These are technologies that would be deadly in the hands of any military. We see in the Middle East, Yemeni rebels, goat herders, equipped with anti-ship missiles, which are extremely effective at damaging ships and threatening surface ships that pass through the area.
What makes the Chinese military formidable in this regard is that they are rich enough to buy and maintain a huge number of weapon systems, missiles in particular, that threaten aircraft and ships that operate in the Taiwan Strait. That’s the most powerful thing about the Chinese military. Everything else about the Chinese military is much more debatable, like the level of training, how free they are from corruption, and their command and control system, which is encumbered with all sorts of political controls.
We know from studies of other developing world militaries that it tends to impair combat effectiveness on the battlefield. Their ability to maneuver and operate in combat, we haven’t seen it. They are completely inexperienced in combat. All of these raise serious questions about how well the Chinese military can operate and fight outside of a Taiwan Strait contingency.
I will turn my microphone to my co-host, John.
How To Prepare For A Possible Conflict With China
David and Tim, I’m sure this will be a very interesting discussion. It has already been. Tim, you’ve already alluded to some of the things I want to raise next with you. Given this undeniable buildup of the Chinese military in the last several years, and you’ve already mentioned some of their most threatening capabilities, like long-range missiles, you’ve pointed out the possible limitations the Chinese have from the perspective of the US military.
Observing both the potential strengths of the Chinese military and some of these weaknesses that you’ve mentioned, what do you think is the best approach from the US military to hedge against the possibility or prepare for the possibility of a conflict with China? Certainly, the American intent is to try to deter any Chinese action. Given what you perceive their strengths and weaknesses to be, what is the best approach for the Americans to take?
The first thing to bear in mind is that any war between the US and China will not conclude in the Taiwan Strait, in my opinion. If the US and China were to go to war, the historical record shows that when great powers fight, these wars spread geographically and last a very long time. The first thing I would suggest to US military planners is to expect a long war and a war that spreads. The second thing I would posit is that trying to fight on the one battlefield where the Chinese have the maximum advantage, the Taiwan Strait, is not necessary or wise.
The example I keep thinking about historically is US defense planning in the lead-up to World War Two regarding Japan, where military planners debated how much effort they should put into trying to protect the Philippines from Japanese conquest. They concluded it was too difficult. They came up with a different plan to beat Japan. I’m not saying the same thing should happen. There is a lot we can do to help Taiwan. We shouldn’t just write them off. The war that begins around Taiwan will spread and last a long time.
Taiwan will be an important theater, but it will not be the only theater. The Chinese military does have an advantage due to those missile systems around Taiwan, but everywhere else in the world, they are extremely weak and vulnerable. The US will have, in my view, an incredible advantage over the Chinese military in the Middle East and South China Sea, even outside the second island chain. Anywhere else in the world, the Chinese will be at a severe disadvantage. Military planners should think of that when they contemplate a possible conflict with China.
Thank you. David, back over to you, sir.
The Strong And Weak Aspects Of The Chinese Military
Thank you. To follow up on that, if you had them to grade China’s real war-fighting capabilities, what would be your assessment and why?
Overall, I would give them a C, maybe. They only have a C because their weapon systems and technologies, especially their missiles, are impressive. They get high marks for developing a large network of anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles. These missiles are what threaten the US military if it operates in the Taiwan Strait. They do have some good modern ships. Outside of those strengths, the Chinese military has serious limitations.
Again, its command and control system, highly centralized and burdened with political controls, raises questions about its ability to operate in a responsive and flexible way on the battlefield. Their aircraft cannot operate very far from China due to a lack of tankers and inexperience with long-range combat operations. Their submarine force is very noisy and inferior to the US military’s. While their surface ships are good, surface ships everywhere are vulnerable to missiles and torpedoes.
The things that make US surface ships vulnerable in the Taiwan Strait are the same things that make Chinese ships vulnerable anywhere else. US aircraft, submarines, and ships could target Chinese naval ships outside the Taiwan Strait and damage them pretty easily. Overall, outside a couple of areas of strength, which are its missile forces and modern warships, there are so many vulnerabilities and limitations in the rest of the military that, in general, I caution people against exaggerating how capable the Chinese military is.
“See in the confines of the classroom” still passes. “See in the confines of war” is still dangerous, but not as threatening as we or the average person think it is. Do you agree with that?
I agree. I don’t want to make the mistake of dismissing the Chinese altogether. That’s a dangerous thing to dismiss and denigrate potential adversaries as hopeless and incapable. The US has made that mistake many times, all the way back to the Vietnam War, Afghanistan, and Iraq. It’s smart not to dismiss the potential warfighting skills of the Chinese. They could surprise us. I’ve argued elsewhere that they could dismantle all political controls in wartime, innovate, find ways to improve on the fly, and, learning from experience, improve their ability to operate.
I give them credit for that. That’s why I suggest the grade of C, a passing grade, which suggests they could be dangerous. At the same time, I caution against exaggerating that they are. One other point to make is that if you think about our most capable adversaries in history, the militaries that were impressive and scored victories against the US military and were hard-fought wars to carry out, think of the Germans in World War Two, the Japanese in the Korean War, the Chinese, and the Koreans.
The things that made them so effective and formidable were things like brilliant operations and tactics, discipline and training of the troops, incredible morale, ruthless leadership, and operationally innovative doctrine. It’s hard to see any of those qualities applying to the PLA. They’ve got good technology, these missiles mainly. Outside of that, very untested, their leadership is riven with corruption and, in general, inexperience.
Their doctrine is not very well implemented. There’s a lot of theoretical writings, but we haven’t seen evidence that they are testing these out, certainly not in combat. It’s all unproven and theoretical. When we evaluate military capabilities, we have to look at them holistically. Look at leadership, doctrine, skill, morale, and all these features. If we do that, we’ll see that in general, there are serious questions about the Chinese military, even if we can see they have some good capabilities, especially in their missiles.
How The Chinese Military Evolved Beyond Its Core Missions
Morale and corruption bring me to the internal version of this, or the role of the military here, regime stability. In your work, you argue that China’s military remains oriented toward internal control over external warfighting. Why does that matter strategically?
It matters because militaries tend to be optimized for one function or another. Most militaries in the world are optimized for keeping their ruler in power. Think of the militaries in the Middle East, a lot of the militaries in Africa, and the developing world militaries in general. Militaries are viewed as extremely useful instruments for keeping the population under control and the leader in power. This is true of China as well.
The difference is that the Chinese have developed or evolved beyond the basic, crude uses of the military, which is sending troops into the streets, bashing heads, and rounding up dissidents. They have offloaded that responsibility to the People’s Armed Police and security forces. The military still plays a very important role in keeping Xi Jinping in power. They do so by several things. First, they are extremely important for propaganda and inciting patriotic enthusiasm for the leadership.
They do this with parades, high-profile demonstrations, intimidating displays, and missile launches and tests, all of which are well covered in the press and receive a lot of propaganda reporting. They also carry out operations and actions, non-war, but important operations and actions, to keep economically related goods coming into China. They patrol off the Horn of Africa. They participate in UN missions to ensure oil can come out of Sudan and into China. That’s another way to help the regime stay in power.
They support Xi Jinping personally. Xi Jinping cultivates their loyalty assiduously, partly by generously giving them big defense budgets and budget increases, partly by purging them ruthlessly whenever any of them seem the slightest bit disloyal, and partly by relentless indoctrination and stricter party controls, which have increased under Xi Jinping to make sure the military remains fundamentally loyal to Xi Jinping. As a side note, people may not realize, but in the Chinese military, every soldier and service member swears an oath of loyalty to Xi Jinping himself. That’s just characteristic of this political army.
How China’s Domestic Pressures Shape Its Military
I have a question on demographics, economics, domestic pressure, and how that shapes the external posture. Let me ask that to you, John, and then leave you the microphone to ask Tim follow-ups. How does China’s domestic pressure shape its external posture?
Do you want me to take that?
Sure. Why don’t you give us your thoughts on that? Then the microphone is yours for questions to Tim.
A lot of people have written and talked about the rather strange Chinese demographics that are at play, the long-term effect of the one-child policy, and how that might actually have a somewhat restraining effect on the willingness of Chinese leaders to go to war, where there could be a lot of casualties. Many people postulated a war with Taiwan, particularly. If it doesn’t go well for China, they could suffer large numbers of casualties.
Having a population now that is increasingly one-child families, some people have mentioned this could be an issue. Also, in terms of the demographics and the economy, the expectations of the Chinese people have been growing and growing in recent years. Clearly, a war over Taiwan or any other major war in Asia is an extremely risky proposition for China. This is a big deal. The fact that it could go badly for them, and this would be somewhat of a roll of the dice on the part of the regime, that if it doesn’t go well, they risk critical support on the part of the population.
That would be at the back of the mind of all the Chinese leaders. If they find themselves, for whatever reason, getting into a crisis, is it worth going to war, given the fact of the demographic pressures that they are under and the expectations of the population to not go through all the deprivation that would be involved in a long war? That’s my personal take on how that is. Tim might want to modify that a little bit.
Impact Of The Decelerating Economy And Decreased Public Trust
The two-part question I had for Tim is related to the remarks that he made a few moments ago. This dovetails with some of your insights about the Chinese military being, like many other militaries, at the end of the day, about internal security, regime stability, and maintenance of the regime. A lot of people were very surprised at the poor performance of the Russian military in Ukraine. Some people could argue that, like the case you were mentioning, the Russian military, at the end of the day, wasn’t there for conquest. It was there to maintain the regime, and it didn’t do well in Ukraine.
One, do you think those are some significant lessons for the leadership in Beijing? No doubt Putin was being told by all his generals that this was going to be a cakewalk. “This is going to be a piece of cake. What are we worried about? Let’s go ahead and do it. Forty days, this war is going to be over.” It ended up being a colossal quagmire for the Russians. Do you think there’s a lesson there for the leadership in Beijing?
The final part of my question is, given this internal focus that you’re saying the Chinese mostly have, and this niche they have in missiles, but weaknesses in a lot of other areas, what should the US military be looking for? What are the red flags the US military should be watching for that might indicate the Chinese military is getting better over time and more capable at things like modern joint operations that the US and other militaries are capable of? Over to you to comment on my point, and then questions for you, sir.
A lot of meaty questions from both of you. I’ll just pile on to what you said, John, earlier about them.
It is the Schar School, Tim. We’re definitely going to be tough on you on questions. No softballs. This is a real discussion.
We’ve got to get our pound of flesh out of this guy.
This is great. On the comments of demographics and economics, John is spot on. The overall effect of a decelerating economy, rising unemployment, and underperformance by the CCP government is lowering public trust and support for the CCP. There are numerous polls, Western scholars who have found ways to get around Chinese censors. When they do polls, they find that support for the CCP is below 50% probably at this point. We saw flashes of that during zero-COVID. There’s a lot of frustration and disappointment.
What does that mean in wartime? The data I look at is what happened in governments and militaries that went to war in the past couple of years, like the US government and the Russian government. What those countries found is that perpetually tenuous support for their leaders, and the US has struggled with its own problems of low popular support, and the same with Putin, made it very difficult to mobilize support for war. Neither country, neither the US nor the Russians, was able to carry out a total mobilization.
Instead, they relied heavily on volunteers and contractors to do the fighting. Something very similar would happen to the Chinese. They would have a hard time carrying out a mobilization and conscripting people to serve in the war. They probably would have to resort to a lot of contracts and trying to get volunteers to fight, which makes it difficult for them to sustain a war that is especially involved in a lot of high casualties. I’m skeptical that these economic pressures will spur the Chinese to become more aggressive.
What we’ve seen in countries around the world is, in general, the opposite. Countries become more reluctant. The US certainly is in that posture right now, much more reluctant to risk involving itself in large-scale war. I’m sure Putin has his regrets that he’ll never admit them about how his war has spiraled. I agree with some very good observations, John, about the one-child policy. We’ve got to remember the PLA is trying to build a high-tech military, which means they’re trying to recruit educated young people. Educated, urban young people, in general, are not eager to serve in the military.
One, the PLA struggles with recruitment. They have problems with desertion as well, and are having a hard time keeping people in service. It’s going to be hard for them to attract or recruit large numbers of these folks to fight a war, since war is not very popular with urban, educated young people. If they serve in the military at all, they tend to look for opportunities for career enhancement. Big questions about the demographic and economic pressures pose strong disincentives for the CCP to risk war.
John’s question is about the lessons from Russia. An important difference between the Russians and the Chinese is that Putin has been fighting for years, since 2008 at least, when he attacked Georgia. He’s comfortable with using the military as a blunt instrument against neighbors and has used it repeatedly. I could see why he believed, probably, that he could do it again. He succeeded in Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine, 2014. Maybe what he overlooked was that those were much smaller operations. Therefore, confidence that it could steamroll Ukraine was seriously misplaced. It is very possible that his advisors misled him as to the state of readiness.
The Chinese are a little more realistic about the limitations of the PLA. Xi Jinping has issued numerous criticisms of their failings and inadequacies. He’s criticized their inability to carry out joint operations, the problem of corruption, and their lack of a war-fighting spirit. Many other points he’s noted, which suggest his confidence in the PLA to start a war is not especially high.
If you think about the scenario people talk about, a war with Taiwan that involves the US, to me, it’s just a real stretch to think Xi Jinping would be willing to put an untested military, riven with corruption, against a premier world military, given all the stakes and all the chips on the table. It’s reckless beyond belief. Maybe if Xi Jinping were a reckless guy, that might be plausible, but he hasn’t shown himself to be that. He’s very cautious. He is a bully, a dictator, and a brutal guy, but cautious in general in using his military.
The Political Red Flags Of A Military Force
John offered another good question. How do we know if the military was serious about becoming a war-fighting machine? The most important indicators would be political. This is why I am more concerned about Xi’s successor than Xi Jinping. I don’t think at this point there’s any indication that he’s going to suddenly turn into a Stalin, a Hitler, or anything like their Tojo military aggressor. He’s consumed by a lot of other worries.
What about the successor? The most important indicators would be political. A leader comes into power and says that he wants to use the military in a much more aggressive way and demands that they be ready to carry out aggression. A leader praises the virtues of combat, downplays fears about bloodshed, urges the military to be prepared for combat, and directs them to plan and prepare for combat.
Those are political indicators of a leader who is eager to use military power and a military that responds by dismantling all the things that get in the way of combat effectiveness, maybe gets rid of party committees or downgrades party commissars, political commissars, in the Soviet state in World War II, and reduces their authority to improve unified command. A military starts testing out its combat capabilities on neighbors. Maybe it provokes a fight with a neighbor in Southeast Asia, or a clash with Taiwan. They start testing and seeing how good the capabilities are, so they can fine-tune them.
Those are the kinds of behavior we have seen in previous aggressors. They have the political leadership that extols war and demands that the military be ready for war. They start testing the military out in smaller contingencies and clashes, and refining their capabilities. They start promoting military leaders who are actually brilliant and operationally skilled, versus bootlickers and loyalists. Those are the indicators I would look for if the PLA were shifting from a political posture to a combat posture.
It is interesting that the red flags are political and not military. The average person would have thought differently.
To John’s point, this is a common issue in our defense communities. We often focus extremely narrowly on military hardware to give us a sense of combat readiness. We overlook the critical non-hardware components, as we did in the Russia-Ukraine case.
Why Taiwan Is Different Than Ukraine
Let me follow up on that. You clearly made the point that the red flags are political. This is a political decision, not a military decision. We talked a little bit about Ukraine and Russia and the similarities and dissimilarities there. There is this prevailing belief out there that if we give up on Ukraine, that means we signal to China that there’s probably not going to be a defense of Taiwan by the United States. Explore that for us, Tim.
The Chinese watch the US behavior regarding Ukraine, and if not China, then certainly, countries in East Asia take lessons from the US’s will to get involved and offer their own resources and the blood of their soldiers to help friends. At some level, the Chinese could be encouraged if they saw the US and its support for Ukraine and permitting Russia to conquer it, or at least conclude the war on favorable terms that Putin wants. It could be.
However, there are some very important differences that limit what the Chinese can do about that. First, Ukraine never had an alliance with the US. There was no chance the US military would get directly involved when Putin launched his attack, and Putin knew this. There’s a reason why Putin was willing to attack Ukraine, but not any of its NATO allies on his border. He does not want a direct clash. He knows he can’t afford a direct clash with the US and all the NATO. He picked on Ukraine, which is unallied, alone, and extremely vulnerable.
Taiwan is different than Ukraine. Taiwan has a security relationship with the US. It’s informal and implied, but no one questions it. Therefore, the risk of US involvement is way higher, extremely high, compared to what Putin faced with Ukraine. It’s not 100%, even if the US government signaled hesitancy about Ukraine. Despite that, the Chinese cannot be sure what the US might do if it attacks Taiwan. There is still some percent chance the US could choose not to get involved, but could also get involved.
If they get involved, in my opinion, it’s a catastrophe for China. It is an utter catastrophe. As I mentioned before, when great powers fight, their wars escalate, grow, and tend to last for years. Given that these two countries have massive nuclear arsenals, there’s no way to control how this war could evolve. It could evolve into nuclear exchanges. Therefore, the risk is infinitely higher for China than it ever was for Russia when they contemplated attacking Ukraine.
US Deterrence And Joint Force Posture In The Indo-Pacific
Thank you. Let’s talk a little bit about US deterrence and joint force posture in the Indo-Pacific. John, take us there.
All these points are weaving together very nicely throughout the discussions. It’s going well. Tim, the perception in the US military is a commonly held belief, for good reason. Given the fact that the United States has actually announced China is “the pacing threat” for the US military, the relative winners within the US military are going to be the Navy and the Air Force. In the fortunately unlikely event that we would have to get into conflict with China, we would fight primarily with air and naval forces.
Cyber and space capabilities would be enormously important, no question. The ground force, particularly the US Army, and to some extent, the Marine Corps, would be the relative losers in the coming years as the US reprioritizes toward a force that’s too large and optimized to deter our now announced pacing threat of China. Again, that seems to be the perception if you comment on that. Part of that is the Army and the Marine Corps, probably especially the US Army, are becoming increasingly anxious because of the distances in the Pacific and because of the nature of a fight against China with these missiles and the very great distances.
The Army in particular seems to be very interested in getting access in countries in the region for military operational reasons, the range of its missiles, and deployment considerations. The Army is trying to get access to places like the Philippines and southern Japan to posture itself better in the event of a war with China. I’m curious about your thoughts about what the Chinese see and how the Chinese are going to react to that, if they see a country like the Philippines throwing its doors open to allow US Army and, to some extent, US Marine Corps forces to be based there. Those two services clearly do want to be based there to be in a better position to fight China. Your thoughts, sir.
I agree that, as currently conceived, all scenarios about a US-China war envision a primarily maritime battle. The winners in those scenarios, the capabilities that are most relevant, appear to be the Air Force and the Navy. However, as I mentioned before, too often, our defense community only focuses on not even a war. It’s a battle around Taiwan. That’s what we're talking about. People are mainly talking about a battle around Taiwan in the same way that defense analysts talked about a battle near the Philippines in a hypothetical war with Japan. It’s almost like that’s what we’re talking about.
Imagine if in the 1930s, all of the US military planning focused on how to defend the Philippines, and that was it. We optimize all our capabilities for that. I fear that we’re doing that in many ways about Taiwan. All we talk about is this battle around Taiwan and how to fight this battle. As I mentioned, a war with China would be multilateral and multi-partner with multiple theaters. Most likely countries that would join with China against the US are countries that have grievances against the US and Europe, maybe North Korea, Iran, or Russia.
We don’t know for sure. It’s all hypothetical. It’s very likely that this war would spread horizontally and potentially vertically. If that’s true, then the US Army will have an important role in many theaters where there’s more of a ground war. Therefore, we need to bear that in mind when we think about a potential war with China. It’s going to be a big war. It’s not just going to be the Taiwan battle. It’s going to be bigger, involving many other countries and other theaters.
The second point is how the Chinese view a US Army or Marine posture in the Philippines. Do you think they have some deterrent value? In general, I’m very skeptical that the Chinese are eager for a fight with the US. They probably would view that presence as threatening and intimidating. They would make a lot of political noise about it and pressure the Philippines diplomatically to push the US out.
In other words, a growing US Army presence along the periphery of China will intensify a peacetime competition and diplomatic struggle between the US and China for influence in countries around the region. It could have some deterrent influence, but I don’t think by itself that that presence will decide the Chinese one way or the other. In general, they have other compelling reasons not to start a war with the US.
David, back over to you, sir.
Answering Rapid-Fire Questions And Episode Wrap-up
We are running up on time. I could spend another hour talking about China policy with both of you, but let me finish with a couple of quick lightning round questions. The first one is for you, Tim. If you could give Congress one recommendation to improve the US deterrence, what would it be?
Plan for a broader war and make sure capabilities are available for a fight beyond the Taiwan battle.
Thank you. Same question for both of you. I’ll start with you, Tim, and then same question for you, John. For our Mason students and for young professionals out there, what’s the one thing about great power competition you wish they understood better that doesn’t show up in headlines? Tim?
For me, the low support for governments everywhere profoundly affects what countries can do with their militaries, how they can fight, and how they can wage war. We need to better understand the impact of low domestic political support for governments on military operations.
Thank you. John, same question. What is the one thing about great power competition that you wish our students and young professionals understood better?
David, I would wish that going forward, students would have a better appreciation of the broad implications of this type of conflict. In the first ten or fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, mostly in the 1990s, early 2000s, the United States had the luxury of dealing with C-grade or below regional opponents like Iraq twice and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Whether it’s Russia or China, this is an entirely different league of competition that’s much more multifaceted, much longer, and potentially has much graver consequences for all concerned. We’re in a different world now than we were in that first fifteen years after the Cold War. It’s incumbent on people to understand how complex and potentially dangerous this level of competition is.
Thank you. Dr. Heath, Dr. Gordon, any final thoughts?
No. First off, I just want to thank you, David, for inviting me. John, it’s been a real pleasure to work with you in this context. It is great to be with you virtually and all my fellow GMU students and alumni. I wish everyone well. Happy holidays.
Tim, John, thank you both for this deeply informative and sober discussion. Your analysis helped separate fact from fear and shows where serious choices will need to be made in the years ahead. To our audience, you can explore more of Tim and John’s work at RAND.org and access all episodes of Policy and Government Perspectives at Schar.GMU.edu/Podcast or wherever you get your shows. We are on every major network. I am Dr. David Ramadan. Until next time, stay informed and stay engaged.
Important Links
About Dr. Timothy Heath
Timothy R. Heath is a senior international defense researcher at RAND. Prior to joining RAND in 2014, Heath had over fifteen years of experience in the U.S. government researching and analyzing military and political topics related to China.
In addition to his publications with RAND, Heath has published numerous articles and two books. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, he has extensive experience analyzing China's national strategy, politics, ideology, and military, as well as Asian regional security developments. He has a Ph.D. in political science from George Mason University and an M.A. in Asian studies from The George Washington University.
About Dr. John Gordon
John Gordon is an adjunct senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. He joined RAND in 1997 after a 20-year U.S. Army career and has since participated in and led numerous studies for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Departments of the Army and Navy. Gordon has authored or coauthored several RAND studies on counterinsurgency and irregular warfare.
He has led or participated in RAND research projects for the governments of the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy, and Germany. Gordon is also an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown and an instructional associate professor at George Mason university, where he teaches graduate-level courses on counterinsurgency and military operations. He has written numerous articles on military subjects that have appeared in a variety of professional journals. Gordon received his Ph.D. in public policy from George Mason University.