Austin Long
Security Studies Program / Center for Nuclear Security Policy
September 24, 2025 12:00-1:30 PM 600 Technology Square, NE49-3100, Cambridge, MA 02142
Summary:
Dr. Austin Long will offer some reflections on the development of US nuclear policy, drawing on his experience as the Joint Staff deputy director, Strategic Stability Strategy, Plans and Policy Directorate within the Department of Defense's Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Bio:
Austin Long joined SSP’s Center for Nuclear Security Policy as Senior Fellow on July 1, 2025. Dr. Long was previously appointed to the Senior Executive Service in October 2022. As DD StS, Dr. Long is responsible for the formulation of Joint Staff positions and recommendations regarding strategy, plans and policy for strategic deterrence, space, cyberspace, electromagnetic spectrum operations, information operations, nuclear, missile defense, countering weapons of mass destruction, subsea and seabed warfare, arms control, and other international negotiations. He was previously Vice Deputy Director for Strategic Stability.
Prior to joining the Joint Staff, Dr. Long was a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and an associate professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He was an analyst and adviser to the U.S. military in Iraq (2007-2008) and Afghanistan (2011 and 2013). In 2014-2015, he was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in Nuclear Security, serving in the Joint Staff J5.
Dr. Long’s research has appeared in International Security, Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, the Journal of Cold War Studies, Orbis, the Journal of Cybersecurity, Texas National Security Review, and Survival. He is also the author of The Soul of Armies: Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Military Culture in the United States and United Kingdom (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016) and co-editor (with Charles L. Glaser and Brian Radzinsky) of Managing U.S. Nuclear Operations in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2022). Dr. Long received his B.S. from the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.