Barry Blechman

Dr. Barry M. Blechman is co-founder and a Distinguished Fellow of the Stimson Center. He served as chairman of Stimson’s Board from 1989 to 2007 and returned to the Board in 2014. Dr. Blechman also founded DFI International Inc., a research consultancy, in 1984, and served as its CEO until the company’s sale in 2007.

Dr. Blechman has more than fifty years of distinguished service in national security in both the public and private sectors. Blechman has worked in the Departments of State and Defense, and at the Office of Management and Budget. During the Carter Administration, he was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Congress as assistant director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. At various times during his career, he has been associated with the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Center for Naval Analyses, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In addition to the Stimson Center, he currently serves on the board of Formtek, Inc., a software company based in Concord, California.

Dr. Blechman holds a PhD in international relations from Georgetown University, has taught at several universities, and has written or edited more than 20 books and nearly 200 articles, op-eds, and blog posts on national security issues. His latest book, “Military Coercion and US Foreign Policy,” co-authored with Melanie Sisson and James Siebens, was published by Routledge in May 2020.

To learn more about Barry Blechman’s background, read his “My Story.”

Selected Publications

Elements of a Nuclear Disarmament Treaty (Stimson, 2010) – with Alexander Bollfrass

Unblocking the Road to Zero (Stimson, 2009, editor and contributor)

“Phase Out the Bomb” (Foreign Policy, 1994) – with Cathleen Fischer

The Politics of National Security: Congress and U. S. Defense Policy (Oxford University Press, 1990) – with W. Philip Ellis

“What in the Name of God is Strategic Superiority?” (Political Science Quarterly, 1982) – with Robert Powell

Force Without War (Brookings Institution, 1978) – with Stephen S. Kaplan

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