Paul Benfield

Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program

Director of Emerging Technologies, Pallas Advisors

Research Areas

Paul Benfield is an Adjunct Senior Fellow for the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security. He is also the Director of Emerging Technologies at Pallas Advisors, a strategic consulting firm focused on national and economic security. Prior to joining the private sector, he served more than 20 years in the U.S. Army in various Airborne, Special Operations, and Infantry units. Paul enlisted in the Army in October 1997. He served in Korea and Ft. Bragg, North Carolina and deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (I and III) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (I) before attending Officer Candidate School in 2005. He graduated as the Distinguished Academic Graduate, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Infantry in September 2005. Additional operational deployments included tours with the 82nd Airborne Division in Baghdad, Iraq in support of the ‘Surge’ from January 2007 to March 2008 and with the 3rd Infantry Division where he deployed to Fallujah, Iraq in 2010 to conduct Advise and Assist Operations. In May of 2013, he received the Douglas MacArthur Leadership award for leadership excellence. Paul's final assignment was as a Military Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. His portfolio included Department of Defense innovation and modernization priorities focusing on incorporating emerging technology into innovative and transformative operational concepts.Paul holds an M.A. in Policy Management from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in Political Science from Campbell University.

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