R. Kim Cragin

Welcome to my website. I am the Director of the Center for Strategy and Military Power (CSMP) and Distinguished Fellow for Counterterrorism at the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies in Washington DC. I have conducted research on terrorism for the past 20 years. Prior to joining NDU, I was a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation. I also have taught at NDU’s College of International Security Affairs (CISA), Georgetown University, and the University of Maryland. I served as senior staff to the 9/11 FBI Review Commission, an advisor to the Multi-National Force – Iraq, and research staff to the Gilmore Commission.

My mixed methods research focuses on foreign fighters, radicalization and recruitment, terrorists’ use of new technologies, irregular warfare, proxy warfare, and counterterrorism. I have conducted field research in Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, northwest China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the southern Philippines, Sri Lanka, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, amongst others. I also studied Arabic at Birzeit University in the West Bank and Hebrew at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I completed my MPP at Duke University and my PhD at the University of Cambridge (Clare College).