Dr. James Schear

James A. Schear serves as Director of Research at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS). In this capacity, he directs the institute's analytic work in the areas of regional security studies, national security strategy, defense planning, strategic concept development and terrorism/transnational threats.

From 1997-2001, Dr. Schear served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs. His portfolio included peacekeeping/stability operations, foreign disaster relief, humanitarian and civic assistance, non-combatant evacuations, responses to migration emergencies, crisis-action planning and negotiations on humanitarian prohibitions in warfare. In November 1999, he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service for his efforts during the Kosovo crisis.

Dr. Schear has held research appointments at Harvard University, The Brookings Institution, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Aspen Institute, and The Henry L. Stimson Center. During 1991, he assisted the UN Secretariat in planning for the implementation of the Gulf War cease-fire resolutions, and he served as an advisor to UN missions in Cambodia and former Yugoslavia from 1992-5. During 2006 he served as advisor to the Iraq Study Group co-chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Representative Lee Hamilton.

Educated in political science and international relations, Dr. Schear earned his M.A. at Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) and his Ph.D. at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is most recently co-editor, with Stephen J. Flanagan, of Strategic Challenges: America's Global Security Agenda (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2008).