Center for a New American Security

Dr. Nora Bensahel is Deputy Director of Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security.  She recently co-authored Hard Choices: Responsible Defense in an Age of Austerity, and Sustainable Pre-eminence: Reforming the U.S. Military at a Time of Strategic Change. Her other research interests include stability operations, counterinsurgency, civilian capacity for operations abroad, and coalition and alliance operations. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Security Studies Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, where she teaches M.A. classes and received the Alumni Leadership Council Teaching Award.

Prior to joining CNAS, Dr. Bensahel served as a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation.  She published many reports there, including After Saddam: Postwar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq, Improving Capacity for Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations, Europe’s Role in Nation-Building, The Counterterror Coalitions, and “The Experience of Foreign Militaries,” in Sexual Orientation and U.S. Military Personnel Policy: An Update of RAND’s 1993 Study.  She has also written several book chapters and published articles in Defence Studies, European Security, Joint Force Quarterly, Journal of Strategic Studies, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Survival. 

Dr. Bensahel has made expert appearances on a wide range of domestic and international television and radio programs, including ARD, BBC, CBS, C-SPAN, Fox News, NBC, NPR, PBS, and Voice of America.  She has also been quoted by The New York Times, USA Today, National Journal, Politico, The Huffington Post, Newsweek, Associated Press, and Reuters.

She received her Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from the Department of Political Science at Stanford University and her B.A., magna cum laude, from Cornell University. While at Stanford, she worked as a research assistant for former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry. She held fellowships at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.