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Insight from a Scholar-Diplomat
Insight from a Scholar-Diplomat
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Dr. Ford's article on "Thinking About Strategy in an Artificial Superintelligence Arms Race" -- co-authored with Dr. Craig Wiener -- was published in Defense & Strategic Studies Online (DASSO), vol. 1, no. 4 (Summer 2025). You can find the whole issue on the DASSO website here , or use the button below to download a PDF of the Ford/Wiener article. (Also, the home page for DASSO can be found here .)

Over much of last year, Dr. Ford participated in the Senior Study Group (SSG) on Strategic Stability at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). Ably chaired by Brad Roberts of the Center for Global Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Rebeccah Heinrichs of Hudson Institute, the SSG completed its report in February 2025, only to immediately run into publication problems as a result of the government's effort to shut down the USIP. The litigation associated with that effort remains ongoing, but the SSG is pleased to be able now to publish its report. The report is not available on the USIP website, but you can use the button below to download a PDF.

The National Institute for Public Policy published Dr. Ford's article "Thinking About Russian Nuclear Weapons Thinking" in volume 5, number 2, of the Journal of Policy & Strategy (2025). You can find the whole issue on the NIPP website here , or use the button below to download a PDF of the article.

In this article in Volume 1, Issue 3 of the Missouri State Univeristy's online journal Defense & Strategic Studies Online (pp. 1-89), Dr. Christopher Ford, John Schurtz, and Erik Quam offer a detailed analytical account of how cybernetic theories of social control developed by the scientist Qian Xuesen and his disciples were adopted by the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and are today critical to understanding the Party’s domestic governance and foreign relations. You can see the whole issue on DASSO's website here , read the Ford/Schurtz/Quam article here , or use the button below to access a PDF of the article.
ABOUT DR. FORD
Dr. Ford is Professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University’s School of Defense and Strategic Studies and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow with the Pharos Foundation at Oxford. He is also the founder and Principal of Two Ravens Policy & Strategy LLC, which furthers national security missions by providing support to both U.S. Intelligence Community and Department of Defense customers. 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.
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.