M. Taylor Fravel is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Taylor studies international relations, with a focus on international security, China, and East Asia. His books include Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China’s Territorial Disputes, (Princeton University Press, 2008) and Active Defense: China's Military Strategy Since 1949 (Princeton University Press, 2019).
Barry R. Posen is Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT, Director Emeritus of the MIT Security Studies Program, and serves on the Executive Committee of Seminar XXI. He is the author of Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy (Cornell University Press 2014), Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks (Cornell University Press 1991), and The Sources of Military Doctrine (Cornell University Press 1984).
Caitlin Talmadge is the Raphael Dorman-Helen Starbuck Associate Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is also a Senior Non-Resident Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and a series editor for the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs at Cornell University Press. From 2023-2025, she served as a member of the Defense Policy Board at the U.S. Department of Defense.