David Barno & Nora Bensahel

David Barno

Lieutenant General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.) is a Professor of Practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.  He is also a Contributing Editor and Columnist for War on the Rocks as well as the co-author of the recently-published book Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime.

General Barno completed a thirty-year active duty Army career where he commanded at every level, serving as an infantry officer, Ranger and paratrooper. He completed three tours in special operations forces, serving with Army Ranger battalions in combat during both the Panama and Grenada invasions. In 2003, he was selected to establish a new three-star operational headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan and take command of the 20,000 U.S. and coalition forces in Operation Enduring Freedom. For nineteen months as the senior American commander, Barno was responsible for overall coalition military leadership of the war in Afghanistan, implementing a new counterinsurgency strategy in close partnership with the U.S. embassy and coalition allies.

Following his military career, Barno served for four years as the Director of the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Concurrently, he was the Chairman of the Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs on Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom Veterans and Families from 2007-2009. Following his time at NDU, he spent nearly five years as a Senior Fellow and later Co-Director of the Responsible Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, a national security think tank based in Washington, D.C. He also later served as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. 

General Barno currently serves on the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors and previously served on the Secretary of Defense’s Reserve Forces Policy Board. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute of Strategic Studies. Prior to his present academic position, he was a Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence at American University’s School of International Service where he taught graduate and undergraduate programs. He speaks and writes frequently on national security policy, civil-military issues, the changing character of conflict, and leader development. Since leaving military service, he has published extensively and testified before Congress over a dozen times.

A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, General Barno earned his master’s degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U.S. Army War College. He has received numerous awards for his military and public service.

Nora Bensahel

Dr. Nora Bensahel is a Professor of Practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a Contributing Editor and Columnist for War on the Rocks.  She is a renowned expert on U.S. defense policy, military operations, and the future of war.  She is the co-author of the recently-published book Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime.

Before joining SAIS, Dr. Bensahel was a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the School of International Service at American University and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Prior to that, she was a senior fellow and co-director of the Responsible Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security. Her early career included over eleven years at the RAND Corporation, where she rose to the position of senior political scientist. She also spent more than a decade as an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, where she taught graduate classes and received the Alumni Leadership Council Teaching Award. 

Dr. Bensahel received her Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, and her B.A. magna cum laude from Cornell University. While at Stanford, she worked as a research assistant for former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry.  She previously served on the Secretary of Defense’s Reserve Forces Policy Board, the Executive Board of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security (LCWINS) and the President’s Council on Cornell Women.