A specialist in military strategy, policy, operations, doctrine and technology, Dr. James Blackwell teaches Military Strategy in the Conduct of Nations for the Bush School of Government and Public Service's Graduate Certificate in Advanced International Affairs program. Dr. Blackwell earned his Ph.D. (1984) and M.A.- Law and Diplomacy (1982) in International Security Studies from the Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and his B.S. (1974) in National Security Studies from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, NY. His dissertation was on The Operational Level of War and NATO Forward Defense. Dr. Blackwell's current research interests include deterrence in the 21st century and the cognitive domain of war.
Since his retirement from the U.S. Army in 1987, Dr. Blackwell has conducted research and analysis on military concepts, strategy and technology, serving as Director of Political Military Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and at several corporate organizations under contract to the Department of Defense and other government agencies, including a number of seminal studies for the Office of Net Assessment. He was Cable News Network's full-time military analyst during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and was Fox News Channel's founding Military Analyst. Dr. Blackwell was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at West Point from 1982 to 1985 and has developed and taught a number of graduate-level courses for government. He was Executive Director for two major Department of Defense investigations (Detention Operations in 2004 and Nuclear Weapons Management in 2008) and from 2009 to 2016 served in the United States Air Force as Special Advisor to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration. Dr. Blackwell currently serves as Research Staff Member at the Institute for Defense Analyses.
