Cheston (Chet) Heldman is a Ph.D. candidate at the RAND School of Public Policy focusing on strategic competition, global integration, simultaneity, and alliance dynamics. Geographically, he primarily focuses on Trans-Atlantic and Pacific security issues. He is also an assistant policy researcher at RAND.
His past professional experience includes working as an action officer with the Joint Staff J5 Operational War Plans focused on global integration issues and USEUCOM & USPACOM planning and as a tabletop exercise developer for OUSW(P), Joint Staff J7, and the U.S. Interagency.
Heldman’s doctoral research centers on wartime coalition evolution and implications for military effectiveness. His research aims to create an analytic framework of coalition evolution to produce insights for policymakers and planners while tightening the connection between policymaking decisions and military considerations.
Heldman holds an M.Sc. in international politics from Trinity College Dublin and a B.A. in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and has completed graduate work at the University of Oxford. For his master’s dissertation, Heldman developed a multifaceted framework for understanding alliance cohesion dynamics.
Education
M.Sc. in international politics, Trinity College Dublin; B.A. in international relations, University of Pennsylvania