Michael O’Hanlon is a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, homeland security and American foreign policy.
He is also a visiting lecturer at Princeton University, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
O’Hanlon’s experience in federal service includes five years as an analyst at the Congressional Budget Office and two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire, where he taught college and high school physics in French.
His most recent books are “A Skeptic’s Case for Nuclear Disarmament,” “The Science of War” and “Budgeting for Hard Power.” The institute says he is working on books on Afghanistan and the future of nuclear weapons policy while contributing to Brookings’ Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan indices.
He is also the author of “Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security” with Kurt Campbell; “A War Like No Other,” about the U.S.-China relationship and the Taiwan issue with Richard Bush; the multi-author volume “Protecting the Homeland 2006/2007”; “Defense Strategy for the Post-Saddam Era;” “The Future of Arms Control” with Michael Levi; and “Neither Star Wars nor Sanctuary: Constraining the Military Uses of Space.”
Together with Mike Mochizuki, he wrote “Crisis on the Korean Peninsula” in 2003 and also wrote “Expanding Global Military Capacity for Humanitarian Intervention” that same year.
O’Hanlon contributes op-ed pieces for newspapers such as the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times and the Japan Times. He has also contributed to the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal and works as a commentator for Alhurra television.
According to the institute, O’Hanlon has appeared on television or radio about 2,000 times since Sept. 11, 2001.
He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton in public and international affairs and both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Princeton in the physical sciences.