Lessons in Military Deterrence from the Iran War: US Strategy in Contested Waters

Brandon Carr is a studies associate at the Quincy Institute specializing in military affairs and defense studies. Naval and expeditionary warfare are particular areas of focus, in addition to the changing character of war. He earned a bachelors in political science from The George Washington University, graduating Summa Cum Laude, and a masters in international relations from the University of Oxford, earning honors in his first year. He previously studied at Oxford as a Visiting Student from 2014–2015. His work has appeared in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings, Responsible Statecraft, and for the Quincy Institute.

Jennifer Kavanagh is a senior fellow & director of military analysis at Defense Priorities. A political scientist by training, Kavanagh has spent her career studying U.S. national security and defense policy. Kavanagh’s research focuses on U.S. military strategy, force structure and defense budgeting, the defense industrial base, and U.S. military deployments and interventions. Previously, Kavanagh was a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She also worked as a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where she led projects for defense and national security clients. She served for three years as director of RAND’s Army Strategy program. Her work has been published in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Washington Quarterly, Lawfare, Los Angeles Times, and War on the Rocks, among other outlets.

Kelly A. Grieco is a senior fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center, where her work focuses on US foreign policy and defense policy, addressing questions about military strategy, force structure, military alliances, air operations, and the future of war. She has expertise in U.S. military alliances and the security architectures of the Indo-Pacific and Europe, as well as current and emerging airpower strategies and capabilities, including air denial and drone warfare. She is also an Adjunct Professor in the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and a Nonresident Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center of the Marine Corps University. Her work has been published in Breaking Defense, Defense News, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Politics, Lawfare, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Parameters, Strategic Studies Quarterly, The Washington Quarterly, and War on the Rocks, among others.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is editor-in-chief at Responsible Statecraft and a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute. Previously she was executive editor of The American Conservative magazine. Before joining TAC in 2017, Vlahos served as a contributing editor to the magazine, reporting and publishing regular articles on U.S. war policy, civil liberties, foreign policy, veterans, and Washington politics since 2007. She spent 15 years as an online political reporter for FOX News at the channel’s Washington D.C. bureau, as well as Washington correspondent for Homeland Security Today magazine. She is on the board of PublicSquare.net, a non-profit media project promoting informed Left-Right debate.