Biography

Seth Jones is a political scientist at the RAND Corporation and an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. Jones specializes in stability operations, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism and has worked abroad in conflict zones over the last several years. He has focused recently on U.S. operations in Afghanistan, including the counterinsurgency campaign and efforts to rebuild the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army. He has led numerous projects on stability operations and counterterrorism for the Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Intelligence Community.

Jones is the author of In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan (W. W. Norton, 2009) and The Rise of European Security Cooperation (Cambridge University Press, 2007). He has published articles on stability operations and security in journals of international affairs, as well as in such newspapers and magazines as the New York Times, Newsweek, Financial Times, and International Herald Tribune.

Among his many RAND publications are (as sole author) Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan: RAND Counterinsurgency Study—Volume 4 (2008) and (as lead author) Securing Tyrants or Fostering Reform U.S. Internal Security Assistance to Repressive and Transitioning Regimes (2006) and Establishing Law and Order After Conflict (2005). Jones is also coauthor of RAND's series of reports on nation-building.

Jones received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.