Dr. Keir A. Lieber is a Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.. He has been awarded major fellowships from the Brookings Institution, Council on Foreign Relations, and Earhart Foundation, among others. His research and teaching interests include nuclear weapons, strategy, and deterrence, and the causes of war.
Dr. Keir A. Lieber is a Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He also holds a joint appointment with the Department of Government. He is also a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
He has been awarded major fellowships from the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Council on Foreign Relations, Earhart Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and Smith Richardson Foundation.
His research and teaching interests include nuclear weapons, strategy, and deterrence; the causes of war; U.S. foreign and national security policy; and international relations theory.
He is co-author, with Daryl Press of Dartmouth College, of The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age (Cornell University Press, 2020); author of War and the Engineers: The Primacy of Politics over Technology (Cornell University Press, 2005); and editor of War, Peace, and International Political Realism (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009). His articles have appeared in leading scholarly and foreign policy publications, including International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, and the Atlantic Monthly.
Dr. Lieber received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and his B.A. in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Articles
The Return of Nuclear Escalation: How America’s Adversaries Have Hijacked Its Old Deterrence Strategy
"Nuclear weapons once again loom large in international politics, and a dangerous pattern is emerging. In the regions most likely to draw the United States...
US Strategy and Force Posture for an Era of Nuclear Tripolarity
"The term 'nuclear tripolarity' describes a world in which China has joined the United States and Russia as a leading nuclear power. As China modernizes...
The New Era of Counterforce: Technological Change and the Future of Nuclear Deterrence
"Nuclear deterrence is based on the threat of retaliation. A nuclear arsenal designed for deterrence must, therefore, be able to survive an enemy first strike...