Bruce Hoffman

Professor Bruce Hoffman has been studying terrorism and insurgency for nearly forty years. He is currently Director of the Center for Security Studies, Director of the Security Studies Program, and a tenured professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Washington, DC. Professor Hoffman previously held the Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation and was also Director of RAND’s Washington, D.C. Office. From 2001 to 2004, he served as RAND’s Vice President for External Affairs and in 2004 he also was Acting Director of RAND’s Center for Middle East Public Policy. Professor Hoffman was recently appointed by the U.S. Congress to serve as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization.

Professor Hoffman was Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency between 2004 and 2006. He was also adviser on counterterrorism to the Office of National Security Affairs, Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq during the spring of 2004 and from 2004-2005 was an adviser on counterinsurgency to the Strategy, Plans, and Analysis Office at Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad. Professor Hoffman was also an adviser to the Iraq Study Group. Professor Hoffman is a member of the National Security Preparedness Group, the successor to the 9/11 Commission and again co-chaired by Governor Thomas H. Kean and Congressman Lee H. Hamilton.

Professor Hoffman is a Global Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.; a Senior Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY; a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel; and, a Visiting Professor at the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He is also a contributing editor to The National Interest.

Professor Hoffman is a member of the Jamestown Foundation’s Board of Directors; a member of the board of advisers to the FBI Intelligence Analysts Association; and, serves on the advisory boards to the Arms Sales Monitoring Project at the Federation of American Scientists and of Our Voices Together: September 11 Friends and Families to Help Build a Safer, More Compassionate World.

Professor Hoffman was the founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he was also Reader in International Relations and Chairman of the Department of International Relations. Professor Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, the leading scholarly journal in the field. and a member of the advisory boards of Terrorism and Political Violence and the Review of International Studies. He is also editor of the new Columbia University Press Series on Terrorism and Irregular Warfare.

Professor Hoffman holds degrees in government, history, and international relations and received his doctorate from Oxford University. In November 1994, the Director of Central Intelligence awarded Professor Hoffman the United States Intelligence Community Seal Medallion the highest level of commendation given to a non-government employee, which recognizes sustained superior performance of high value that distinctly benefits the interests and national security of the United States.

Professor Hoffman has conducted field work on terrorism and insurgency in Afghanistan, Argentina, Colombia, India (Kashmir and Assam), Indonesia, Israel, Iraq, Northern Ireland, Pakistan (North West Frontier Province), the Philippines (Mindanao), Pakistan, Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza Strip), Sri Lanka, and Turkey.

A revised and updated edition of his acclaimed 1998 book, Inside Terrorism, was published in May 2006 by Columbia University Press in the U.S. and S. Fischer