Caitlin Talmadge

Caitlin Talmadge is Associate Professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service as well as Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, and Research Affiliate in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research and teaching focus on nuclear deterrence and escalation, defense policy, civil-military relations, U.S. military operations and strategy, and the Persian Gulf. She is author of The Dictator's Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes (Cornell, 2015), which Foreign Affairs named the Best Book on Security in 2016 and which won the 2017 Best Book Award from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association. She also is co-author of U.S. Defense Politics: The Origins of Security Policy (fourth edition 2021, Routledge) and is currently writing a book on nuclear escalation in conventional wars. She has published articles in International Security, Security Studies, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Washington Quarterly, The Non-Proliferation Review, The New York Times, and elsewhere.

Dr. Talmadge is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. She has held fellowships from Harvard University's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Brookings Institution, the American Political Science Association, and the Stanton Foundation. Previously she worked as a research assistant at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a consultant to the Office of Net Assessment at the U.S. Department of Defense, and a professor at the George Washington University. For more information, please visit www.caitlintalmadge.com.