David Smith

Distinguished Fellow

[email protected]

David O. Smith is a Distinguished Fellow with the South Asia Program at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan policy research center in Washington, D.C. and an independent consultant to Sandia National Laboratories on issues related to South Asia. He regularly participates in quasi-official (Track 2) engagements with senior Pakistan and India officials sponsored by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center and the U.S. Institute for Peace in Washington D.C. Smith retired from government service in May 2012 after serving in a senior executive position in the Defense Intelligence Agency. Prior to that he was Senior Country Director for Pakistan in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy) in the Department of Defense. During thirty-one years of active duty service in the U.S. Army, he spent twenty-two years dealing with politico-military issues in the Near East and South Asia, including two three-year tours of duty as U.S. Army Attaché in Pakistan. He retired as a colonel. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army War College, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Armed Forces Staff College, and the Pakistan Army Command and Staff College. His most recent publication is The Quetta Experience: A Study of Attitudes and Values Within the Pakistan Army, published by The Woodrow Wilson Center in September 2018.

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Book

The Wellington Experience

Executive Summary August 2017 marked the 70th anniversary of U.S.-India diplomatic relations. Ironically, the first five decades of the relationship between the world’s two largest democracies were marked by barely disguised hostility and estrangement…

Op-Ed

Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan: Positive Evolution or More of the Same?

This op-ed was published in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

Stimson in the News

Dave Smith Interviewed by VOA Urdu

An American Army Officer who Spent more than three decades in Pakistan- (Nilofer Mughal, October 17, 2018)

Press Release

Sameer Lalwani Appointed Director, Elizabeth Threlkeld Deputy Director of Growing South Asia Program

For Immediate Release Contact: Audel Shokohzadeh, [email protected], 202-478-3419 September 5, 2018 Washington, DC – The Stimson Center announces today that Sameer Lalwani has been appointed as the Director of the Stimson Center’s South Asia program an…

Book

Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia

India and Pakistan have developed and flight tested seventeen new nuclear weapon delivery vehicles since testing nuclear devices in 1998 – an average of more than one per year. Military doctrines have also evolved to emphasize more rapid mobiliza…