Dr. Austin Long is a Senior Nuclear Fellow at the Center for Nuclear Security Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Security Studies Program. From 2022 to 2025, Dr. Long served as the Joint Staff Deputy Director, Strategic Stability Strategy, Plans and Policy Directorate. He was previously a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation and an Associate Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. His research interests include low-intensity conflict, military innovation and the political economy of national security.
Dr. Austin Long is a Senior Nuclear Fellow at the Center for Nuclear Security Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program.
From 2022 to 2025, Dr. Long served as the Joint Staff Deputy Director, Strategic Stability Strategy, Plans and Policy Directorate. In that role, he was responsible for the formulation of Joint Staff positions and recommendations regarding strategy, plans and policy for strategic deterrence, space, cyberspace, electromagnetic spectrum operations, nuclear missile defense, countering weapons of mass destruction, subsea and seabed warfare, arms control, and other international negotiations. Previously, he was Vice Deputy Director for Strategic Stability.He was formerly a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation and an Associate Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in Nuclear Security, serving in the Joint Staff Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Policy Division. Prior to that, he was an analyst and advisor to the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His research interests include low-intensity conflict, intelligence, military operations, nuclear forces, military innovation and the political economy of national security.
Dr. Long’s research has appeared in International Security, Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, the Journal of Cold War Studies, Orbis, and Survival. He is also the author of The Soul of Armies: Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Military Culture in the United States and United Kingdom and co-editor of Managing U.S. Nuclear Operations in the 21st Century.
He received his B.S. from the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Articles
Able Archer 83 (Re)-revisited
"Perhaps no event of the Cold War remains murkier than the Soviet response to the 1983 NATO nuclear command exercise Able Archer. For some, the...
Myths or Moving Targets? Continuity and Change in China’s Nuclear Forces
"In 2020, China’s nuclear posture and force structure has changed dramatically. Its arsenal has grown and diversified even as readiness and command and control have...
Book Review Roundtable: The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution 30 Years Later
Dr. Charles L. Glaser, Dr. Austin Long
Dr. Charles L. Glaser's chapter "Nuclear Revolution Theory Marches Forward" was featured in Book Review Roundtable: The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution 30 Years Later,...
U.S. Nuclear Strategy toward China: Damage Limitation and Extended Deterrence
"The 2018 National Defense Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) both make clear that the U.S. government believes it faces an era of renewed long-term...