Richard K. Betts

Last updated
Richard K. Betts
Born (1947-08-15) August 15, 1947 (age 76)
Education Harvard University
Occupation(s) Professor, author, pundit, policy scholar
Organization School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Richard Kevin Betts (born August 15, 1947) is an American political scientist and international relations scholar who centers on U.S. foreign policy. He is the Leo A. Shifrin Professor of War and Peace Studies Emeritus in the Department of Political Science, former director of the International Security Policy Program in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and former director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Betts was born in Easton, Pennsylvania and raised in Newton, Massachusetts, graduating from Newton High School in 1965. He went on to attend and graduate from Harvard University earning a bachelor's, master's, and doctorate in government in 1965, 1971 and 1975 respectively. His dissertation, under the direction of Samuel P. Huntington was on the role of military advice in decisions to resort to force, which later became his first book, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises. [2] His dissertation was awarded the Sumner Prize, for best dissertation in international relations. While a student at Harvard, Betts served as a teaching fellow from 1971 to 1975 and a lecturer for the 1975–1976 academic year. He served as a professional staff member on the Church Committee.

In 1976 Betts joined the Brookings Institution where he served as a research associate and later in 1981 a senior fellow until 1990. While at Brookings, Betts was a professorial lecturer at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Harvard, and Columbia University. Additionally, he was a staff member on the National Security Council in 1977, on the foreign policy staff of Walter Mondale presidential campaign in 1984, and Commissioner of the National Commission on Terrorism 2000-01.

Later career

In 1990, Betts joined the faculty at Columbia University. There, he led the international security policy program at the School of International and Public Affairs, became the director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies. Betts taught the introductory course war, peace, and strategy for graduate and undergraduate students for over 25 years.

In 1996, Betts joined the Council on Foreign Relations as the Director of National Security Studies. He served in the role until 2000, when he transitioned into an adjunct senior fellow role, which he currently retains. [3]

Betts has been an occasional consultant to the National Intelligence Council and Central Intelligence Agency. His writings have earned five prizes, including the Woodrow Wilson Award of the American Political Science Association for the best book in political science. [4]

Books

Sole Author

Co-Author & Edited

Articles

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Council on Foreign Relations</span> American think tank on foreign policy

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is an independent and nonpartisan nonprofit organization. CFR is based in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. Its membership has included senior politicians, numerous secretaries of state, CIA directors, bankers, lawyers, professors, corporate directors and CEOs, and senior media figures.

Morton H. Halperin is an American analyst who deals with U.S. foreign policy, arms control, civil liberties, and the workings of bureaucracies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Jervis</span> American political scientist and academic (1940–2021)

Robert Jervis was an American political scientist who was the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University. Jervis was co-editor of the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs, a series published by Cornell University Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Rothkopf</span> American academic

David J. Rothkopf is an American foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator. He is the founder and CEO of TRG Media and The Rothkopf Group, a columnist for the Daily Beast and a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors. He is the author of ten books including Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power, National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear, and most recently, Traitor: A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump. He is also the podcast host of Deep State Radio. Rothkopf also serves as a registered foreign agent of the United Arab Emirates.

Kenneth Guy Lieberthal is an American professor and politician known as an expert on China's elite politics, political economy, domestic and foreign policy decision making, and on the evolution of US-China relations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University</span> Public policy school of Columbia University

The School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) is the international affairs and public policy school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university located in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, New York City. It is consistently ranked one of the leading graduate schools for international relations in the world. SIPA offers Master of International Affairs (MIA) and Master of Public Administration (MPA) degrees in a range of fields, as well as the Executive MPA and Ph.D. program in Sustainable Development.

Helen V. Milner is an American political scientist and the B. C. Forbes Professor of Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, where she is also the Director of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance. She has written extensively on issues related to international political economy like international trade, the connections between domestic politics and foreign policy, globalization and regionalism, and the relationship between democracy and trade policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Indyk</span> U.S. Diplomat in the Middle East

Martin Sean Indyk is an American diplomat and foreign relations analyst with expertise in the Middle East. He was a distinguished fellow in International Diplomacy and later executive vice president at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C from 2001-2018. He took leave from the Brookings Institution to serve as the U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli–Palestinian Negotiations from 2013 to 2014. He is currently a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Robert Jeffrey Art is Christian A. Herter Professor of International Relations at Brandeis University, and Fellow at MIT Center for International Studies. He subscribes to the theory of neorealism, which argues that force still underlies the power structure in the modern world. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a United States nonprofit think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Jentleson</span> American political scientist

Bruce W. Jentleson is a professor of public policy and political science at Duke University, where he served from 2000 to 2005 as Director of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy. He previously was a professor at the University of California, Davis and Director of the UC Davis Washington Center. In addition to his academic career, he has served in a number of foreign policy positions in Democratic administrations.

R. Jeffrey Smith is a managing director of RosettiStarr LLC, a corporate security and intelligence firm, where he leads investigative work and conducts corporate risk analysis for attorneys, management teams, and investors worldwide. Its clients include corporate enterprises with global operations major private equity firms and hedge funds with a combined $650 billion in assets under management. He joined Rosetti Starr in November 2021.

Robert L. Suettinger is an American international relations scholar currently serving as a senior advisor at The Stimson Center and an advisor to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC). He was national intelligence officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) from 1997 to 1998 during the Clinton administration. While there, he oversaw the preparation of national intelligence estimates for the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. His areas of specialty are the People's Republic of China and the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William B. Quandt</span> American academic and former government policymaker

William B. Quandt is an American scholar, author, and professor emeritus in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. He previously served as senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and as a member on the National Security Council in the Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter administrations. He was actively involved in the negotiations that led to the Camp David Accords and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty. His areas of expertise include Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, and U.S. foreign policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Justin Vaïsse</span> French international relations scholar

Justin Pierre Albert Vaïsse is a French historian and intellectual. Since March 2019, he is the Director General of the Paris Peace Forum organization, an independent NGO he founded in 2018 under the impetus of French President Emmanuel Macron. The Paris Peace Forum is an annual event that aims at promoting new rules and solutions to address the global challenges of our time. Prior to this role, he was Director of Policy Planning at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Security studies</span>

Security studies, also known as international security studies, is an academic sub-field within the wider discipline of international relations that studies organized violence, military conflict, national security, and international security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Russett</span>

Bruce Martin Russett was an American political scientist who was most well-known for his work on the democratic peace. He was Dean Acheson Professor of Political Science and Professor in International and Area Studies, MacMillan Center, Yale University, and edited the Journal of Conflict Resolution from 1972 to 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard C. Bush</span>

Richard C. Bush III is an American political scientist, foreign policy analyst, and a specialist in China affairs. Since 2002, he has served as the director of Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies (CNAPS) of the Brookings Institution, and concurrently as the inaugural Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Goldgeier</span> American academic

James M. Goldgeier is a professor of international relations at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C., where he served as dean from 2011 to 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Derek Chollet</span> American government official and foreign policy advisor

Derek Chollet is an American foreign policy advisor and author currently serving as the counselor of the United States Department of State. Previously, Chollet was the executive vice president for security and defense policy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. From 2012 to 2015, Chollet was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, where he managed U.S. defense policy involving Europe, NATO, the Middle East, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere for Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel.

Janne E. Nolan was an American academic, foreign policy advisor, and expert on nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. She held senior positions in the Department of State, as a staffer for the Senate, and served on multiple blue ribbon commissions. She was well known for supporting generations of women in the traditionally male dominated field of nuclear security.

References

  1. "Richard K. Betts | Columbia SIPA".
  2. Richard K. Betts. 2003. Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security. New York: Columbia University Press. p.xii
  3. "CFR Bio: Richard K. Betts - Council on Foreign Relations". Archived from the original on 2006-07-17.
  4. As coauthor of The Irony of Vietnam (1979) "Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award" (PDF). American Political Science Association.
  5. <ref>Self