Hal Brands

Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs

Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

  • Press: comms@cnas.org

Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Strategic Planning from 2016 to 2016, and has been a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He has also consulted with a range of government offices and agencies in the intelligence and national security communities and served as lead writer for the Commission on the National Defense Strategy for the United States. Brands received his BA from Stanford University and his PhD from Yale University. He previously worked at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the Institute for Defense Analyses.

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  • Podcast
    • February 16, 2024
    Hal Brands on the Looming Threat of Global Conflict

    By Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Jim Townsend & Hal Brands

  • Events
    • April 18, 2019
    New Voices in American Grand Strategy

    By Michael J. Zak, Richard Fontaine, Loren DeJonge Schulman, Elbridge Colby, Emma Ashford, Hal Brands, Kate Kizer, Rebecca Friedman Lissner, Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson & Vance Serchuk

  • Reports
    • April 11, 2019
    New Voices in Grand Strategy

    By Richard Fontaine, Loren DeJonge Schulman, Emma Ashford, Hal Brands, Jasen J. Castillo, Kate Kizer, Rebecca Friedman Lissner, Jeremy Shapiro & Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson

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