Profile

Biography

Dr. Ford is Director of Missouri State University's School of Defense and Strategic Studies and a tenured full professor with MSU. He is also a Nonresident Senior Associate in the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow with the Pharos Foundation at Oxford. Dr. Ford is also a member of the Advisory Board of the American Foreign Policy Council, and also of the National Security Institute at George Mason University, and a member of the Global Security External Advisory Board at the Sandia National Laboratory. He is also the founding editor-in-chief of Missouri State University’s journal Defense & Strategic Studies Online (DASSO).

In 2021-24, Dr. Ford was a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and from 2021-23 he served in various capacities at the MITRE Corporation, most recently as a MITRE Fellow and the founding Director of MITRE’s Center for Strategic Competition. He previously served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation (2018-2021), for 15 months also exercising the authorities of the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, and before that as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for WMD and Counterproliferation at the U.S. National Security Council (2017). A Rhodes Scholar with degrees from Harvard, Oxford, and Yale, he has also been U.S. Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation, a Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, a staffer on five different U.S. Senate committees, a think tank scholar, and a U.S. Navy intelligence officer.

Details

Education

• DPhil, International Relations, 1992, Oxford University 1992 (as Rhodes Scholar)
• JD, 1995, Yale Law School
• BA, Government/International Relations (summa cum laude), 1989, Harvard College

Teaching

• DSS 725 Instruments of State Power
• DSS 601 Nuclear Strategy and Arms Control

Professional experience

• Director of Missouri State University's School of Defense and Strategic Studies
• Tenured full professor with Missouri State University
• Founding editor-in-chief of Missouri State University’s journal Defense & Strategic Studies Online (DASSO)
• Visiting Fellow, Stanford University’s Hoover Institution (2021-24)
• MITRE Fellow and the founding Director of the Center for Strategic Competition, the MITRE Corporation (2021-23)
• U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation (2018-2021)
• Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for WMD and Counterproliferation, U.S. National Security Council (2017)
• U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (2015-16)
• U.S. Senate Banking Committee (2015)
• U..S. Senate Committee on Appropriations (2013-14)
• Hudson Institute, Senior Fellow (2008-13)
• U.S. Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation (2006-08)
• Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, (2003-06)
• U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee (2001-03)
• U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (2000-01)
• U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (1997, 1999)
• U.S. Navy intelligence officer (1994-2011)
• Rhodes Scholar (1989-92)

Research and professional interests

Strategic competition, nuclear deterrence and nuclear weapons policy, Chinese history and strategic culture, arms control and nonproliferation, international relations theory

Awards and honors