Richard A. Falkenrath, Former Bush Administration Homeland Security Official, Joins Brookings

Richard A. Falkenrath, President Bush’s former deputy homeland security advisor, has joined the Brookings Institution as a visiting fellow.

“Richard Falkenrath brings to Brookings an incisive intellect, a broad ranging academic background in national security affairs, and unique experience at the frontline of our government’s attempt to adapt to the post-9/11 world. He will be a highly valued member of the Foreign Policy Studies program,” said James B. Steinberg, vice president and director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.

Falkenrath was named acting deputy homeland security advisor in January 2003 before being appointed to the deputy position three months later. He joined the White House’s Office of Homeland Security in October 2001 as special assistant to the president and senior director for policy and plans. Before that he was the director for proliferation strategy on the National Security Council and a member of the National Security Council transition team for President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

While at Brookings, Falkenrath will focus on homeland security, national security decision-making, intelligence policy, and global counterterrorism cooperation.

Before joining the U.S. government, Falkenrath was assistant professor of public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where his teaching and research focused on proliferation, terrorism, and European security. From 1995 to 1998, he was executive director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He is the author and coauthor of Shaping Europe’s Military Order (1995), Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy (1996), America’s Achilles’ Heel: Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack (1998), and numerous journal articles and chapters of edited volumes.

Falkenrath holds a Ph.D. from the Department of War Studies at King’s College in London, where he was a British Marshall Scholar, and is a summa cum laude graduate of Occidental College, Los Angeles, with degrees in economics and international relations. He was a visiting research fellow at the German Society of Foreign Affairs (DGAP) in Bonn in 1995.