Rebecca Hersman is Director of the Project on Nuclear Issues and Senior Advisor for the International Security Program, and has previously worked at the DOD, Council on Foreign Relations, and House Armed Services Committee. She specializes in defense strategy and capabilities, defense and security, geopolitics and international security, and weapons of mass destruction proliferation.
Rebecca Hersman is Director of the Project on Nuclear Issues and Senior Advisor for the International Security Program.
Hersman previously worked at the Department of Defense (DOD), where she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). She led DOD policy and strategy to prevent WMD proliferation and use, reduce and eliminate WMD risks and respond to WMD dangers. She served as DOD’s principal policy advocate on issues pertaining to the Biological Weapons Convention, Chemical Weapons Convention, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Prior to joining DOD, Hersman was a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the National Defense University. Her primary projects focused on the role of DOD in mitigating the effects of chemical and biological weapons attack, concepts and strategies for eliminating an adversary’s WMD programs, as well as proliferation issues facing the United States. She also founded and directed the WMD Center’s Program for Emerging Leaders, an initiative designed to shape and support the next generation of leaders from across the U.S. government with interest in countering weapons of mass destruction.
She previously held positions as an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the undersecretary of defense for policy, and a member of the House Armed Services Committee professional staff.
She specializes in defense strategy and capabilities, defense and security, geopolitics and international security, and weapons of mass destruction proliferation.
Her books and publications include Restoring Restraint: Enforcing Accountability for Users of Chemical Weapons and The Evolving U.S. Nuclear Narrative: Communicating the Rationale for the Role and Value of U.S. Nuclear Weapons, 1989 to Today.
She holds an M.A. in Arab studies from Georgetown University and a B.A. from Duke University.
Articles
Wormhole Escalation in the New Nuclear Age
“Increasingly capable and intrusive digital information technologies, advanced dual-use military capabilities, and diffused global power structures will reshape future crises and conflicts between nuclear-armed adversaries...
NC3: Challenges Facing the Future System
“This brief is the first in the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) Deep Dive Debrief that explores emerging or contentious nuclear challenges. These briefs...