Gordon Adams

Affiliation: International Institute for Strategic Studies

Gordon Adams has been a defense and foreign policy analyst and budget specialist for more than thirty years. Educated at Stanford and Columbia University (Ph.D. in political science), he founded one of Washington’s most respected defense budget think tanks – the Defense Budget Project – in 1983. In 1992 he began a five year stint as Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget. He was responsible for all defense, intelligence and foreign policy budgets as the senior White House official for national security budgeting. Since leaving the White House, he has been Deputy Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and has taught national security planning and budgeting at George Washington University and, now, at the School of International Service, American University. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center, where he directs the Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense program.

As one of the few Washington policy wonks who speaks both defense and foreign policy budgeting, Dr. Adams is regularly called on to testify before Congress. He is also a frequent voice in the media on both subjects, appearing regularly in or writing for such publications as Politico, the New York Times, and The Hill. He also writes an occasional column for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and blogs for National Journal, Democracyarsenal.org, Huffington Post, and BudgetInsight.org. His most recent book, Buying National Security: How America Plans and Pays for Its Global Role and Safety at Home (co-authored with Cindy Williams; Routledge 2010) is a unique study of national security budgeting, covering foreign policy, defense, intelligence, and homeland security from both the executive branch and congressional perspective.

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