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SIPA Faculty
Richard K. Betts
International Affairs Building, Room 1328
Arnold Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies
Phone: 212-854-7325
richard.betts@sipa.columbia.edu
rkb4@columbia.edu
Biography:
Richard K. Betts is the Arnold Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies in the Department of Political Science, the director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies, and the director of the International Security Policy Program in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
Professor Betts's research interests include national security, military strategy, and international conflict. Betts's first book, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises (Harvard 1977) was issued in a second edition by Columbia in 1991. He is the author of three books published by the Brookings Institution: Surprise Attack (1982), Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (1987), and Military Readiness (1995). He is the coauthor and editor of three other Brookings books: The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked (1979), Nonproliferation and U.S. Foreign Policy (1980), and Cruise Missiles: Technology, Strategy, Politics (1981). He is the editor of Conflict After the Cold War: Arguments on Causes of War and Peace, 2nd edition (Longman 2001). His writings have earned five prizes, including the Woodrow Wilson Award of the American Political Science Association for the best book in political science.
Betts has published numerous articles on foreign policy, military strategy, intelligence operations, conventional forces, nuclear weapons, arms trade, collective security, strategic issues in Asia, and other subjects in Foreign Affairs, International Security, World Politics, Political Science Quarterly, Survival, International Studies Quarterly, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, and other journals. Among his recent publications is "The Soft Underbelly of American Primacy: Tactical Advantages of Terror," in Political Science Quarterly (Spring 2002), reprinted in September 11, Terrorist Attacks, and U.S. Foreign Policy, edited by Demetrios James Caraley (Academy of Political Science 2002).
Professor Betts received his BA, MA, and PhD in government from Harvard University. He has also served on the Harvard faculty as lecturer in government and as visiting professor of government. He was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution until 1990. A former staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the National Security Council, and the Mondale presidential campaign, Betts has been an occasional consultant to the National Intelligence Council and Central Intelligence Agency.
Research Interests: Foreign Policy, IR/Security