Dr. Shane Smith


Dr. Shane Smith is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Defense University’s Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction. His current research focuses on strategic stability and the role of nuclear weapons in Asia-Pacific affairs, extended deterrence, and North Korea’s nuclear program.  He is also a Special Advisor at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, where he helps shape and support a strategic engagement and applied research program aimed at reducing WMD dangers. 

In 2007, Dr. Smith helped launch the WMD Center’s Program for Emerging Leaders and was the Program’s Director from 2008 to 2012.  He has taught national security and nuclear policy related courses at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the National Defense University, and at Johns Hopkins University. 

Before joining the WMD Center, Dr. Smith worked for former Secretary of Defense William Perry and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter at the Harvard-Stanford Preventive Defense Project.  He was also a Research Associate for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he coordinated two nuclear policy task forces, and a Research Assistant at the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council.  He has published in edited volumes, academic journals, and leading newspapers. Most recently, he co-authored a chapter in Etel Solingen (ed), Sanctions, Statecraft, and Nuclear Proliferation (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and author a chapter in Jeffrey Larsen (ed), Responding to Catastrophic Events: A Consequence Management Reader (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013).

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