Stephen J. Flanagan is an adjunct senior fellow at the RAND Corporation. He served in several senior positions in government, most recently as special assistant to the president and senior director for defense policy and strategy at the National Security Council (NSC) from 2013 to 2015. Between 1989 and 1999 he served as special assistant to the president and senior director for Central and Eastern Europe at the NSC; associate director and member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff; and national intelligence officer for Europe. He also worked as a professional staff member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He held the Kissinger Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2007 until 2013, and served as senior vice president and director of the International Security Program. He was director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies and vice president for research at National Defense University from 2000 to 2007. He also held research and faculty positions at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and the National War College, and is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
Flanagan has published six books and over seventy reports and journal articles on transatlantic, international security, and defense issues. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the editorial Board of International Security. He earned a Ph.D. in international relations from the Fletcher School, Tufts University, and an A.B. in political science from Columbia University.
Selected Publications
Flanagan, Stephen J., Nicholas Martin, Alexis A. Blanc, and Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, A Framework of Deterrence in Space Operations, RAND Corporation (RR-A820-1), 2023
Ochmanek, David A., Anna Dowd, Stephen J. Flanagan, Andrew R. Hoehn, Jeffrey W. Hornung, Michael J. Lostumbo, and Michael J. Mazarr, Inflection Point: How to Reverse the Erosion of U.S. and Allied Military Power and Influence, RAND Corporation (RR-A2555-1), 2023
Frederick, Bryan, Samuel Charap, Scott Boston, Stephen J. Flanagan, Michael J. Mazarr, Jennifer D. P. Moroney, and Karl P. Mueller, Pathways to Russian Escalation Against NATO from the Ukraine War, RAND Corporation (PE-A1971-1), 2022
Germanovich, Gene, James Black, Linda Slapakova, Stephen J. Flanagan, and Theodora Ogden, Enhancing US-Finnish and regional defence cooperation: An exploratory analysis, RAND Corporation (RR-A1424-1), 2021
Flanagan, Stephen J., Anika Binnendijk, Irina A. Chindea, Katherine Costello, Geoffrey Kirkwood, Dara Massicot, and Clint Reach, Russia, NATO, and Black Sea Security, RAND Corporation (RR-A357-1), 2020
Black, James, Stephen J. Flanagan, Gene Germanovich, Ruth Harris, David A. Ochmanek, Marina Favaro, Katerina Galai, and Emily Ryen Gloinson, Enhancing deterrence and defence on NATO's northern flank: Allied perspectives on strategic options for Norway, RAND Corporation (RR-4381-NMOD), 2020
Flanagan, Stephen J., F. Stephen Larrabee, Anika Binnendijk, Katherine Costello, Shira Efron, James Hoobler, Magdalena Kirchner, Jeffrey Martini, Alireza Nader, Peter A. Wilson, Turkey’s Nationalist Course, Implications for the U.S.-Turkish Strategic Partnership and the U.S. Army, RAND Corporation (RR-2589), 2020