Justin Anderson

Deputy Director

Areas of Expertise: Nuclear deterrence; extended deterrence and allied assurance; risk reduction and confidence-building measures; nuclear arms control and nonproliferation; law of war and treaty law.

Dr. Justin Anderson is the Deputy Director at National Defense University's Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction, where he is responsible for developing the Center’s programs and leads its research, policy support, and education initiatives on nuclear issues. His research focuses on deterrence (nuclear and non-nuclear), extended deterrence and allied assurance, nuclear forces, and future nuclear arms control agreements and confidence-building measures (CBMs). Prior to joining the Center, he was a Senior Policy analyst at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), providing research and analysis on arms control, nonproliferation, counter-WMD, and deterrence issues for the United States Air Force (USAF), USSTRATCOM, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the OSD Office of Treaty Compliance. From 2009-10, in support of OSD Office of the General Counsel/International Affairs, he served as Editor of the Department of Defense Law of War Manual.

Dr Anderson, together with his co-author Lt Col James R. McCue, USAF, received the USSTRATCOM 2022 General Larry T. Welch Deterrence Writing Award (Senior Division) for their Spring 2021 Strategic Studies Quarterly article “Deterring, Countering, and Defeating Conventional-Nuclear Integration.” He was also the lead analyst for an SAIC research team that received the 2011 Major General Robert E. Linhard for Outstanding Research from the Air Force Institute of National Security Studies for their paper Qualitative Considerations of Nuclear Forces at Lower Numbers and Implications for Future Arms Control Negotiations.

Dr. Anderson has taught at the Defense Nuclear Weapons School, the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Nuclear College, George Mason University, the Joint Services Command and Staff College (U.K.), King’s College London, and Brookes University. He was a 2003 Marshall Scholar and a 2000 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Junior Fellow. He has a PhD and MA in War Studies from King’s College London and a BA in Diplomacy and World Affairs from Occidental College.

 

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