James A. Schear

James (Jim) A. Schear is an adjunct senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Early in his career, he worked at the United Nations, supporting implementation of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire resolutions and, shortly thereafter, as an advisor to UN missions in Cambodia and former Yugoslavia. Since then, Schear has twice served as a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense, with duties spanning security cooperation, peacekeeping, stabilization missions, coalition support, atrocity prevention, and the provision of humanitarian relief and civic assistance to countries affected by natural disasters or complex emergencies. He was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service for his work during the 1999 Kosovo crisis. In the scholarly domain, Schear has held research appointments at Harvard, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Brookings Institution, the Stimson Center, the Carnegie Endowment and the Wilson Center. From 2001-2008, he served as Director of Research at National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies. Schear has edited or co-edited four books and authored numerous articles published in Foreign Affairs, International Security, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Quarterly, Foreign Policy, and the Wilson Quarterly.