Jacob Stokes

Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Indo-Pacific Security Program

Research Areas

Jacob Stokes is a senior fellow and deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where his work focuses on U.S.-China relations, Chinese foreign and military policy, East Asian security affairs, and great power competition. He is the author of multiple CNAS reports, including Atomic Strait: How China's Nuclear Buildup Shapes Security Dynamics with Taiwan and the United States, and is the coauthor, with Alexander Sullivan, of U.S.-China Competition and Military AI: How Washington Can Manage Strategic Risks amid Rivalry with Beijing.

He previously served in the White House on the national security staff of then–Vice President Joe Biden, where Stokes was senior advisor to the national security advisor, as well as acting special advisor to the vice president for Asia policy. He has also worked in the U.S. Congress as a professional staff member for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and as a foreign and defense policy advisor for Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).

Outside of government, Stokes has been a senior analyst in the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace and with the National Security Network. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, Lawfare, Politico Magazine, War on the Rocks, Democracy, Orbis, and The Guardian. His analysis has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, CBS News, NBC News, The Economist, Reuters, Bloomberg, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, TIME, Newsweek, C-SPAN, Axios, and Vox. Stokes is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds an MA from the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and undergraduate degrees from the University of Missouri.