Jim Baker, an American strategist, is senior fellow for strategic competition at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Baker previously served as director of the Office of Net Assessment at the U.S. Department of Defense, producing long-range assessments that informed decisions by the secretary of defense, the joint chiefs of staff, and other cabinet officers. Over seventeen years in senior strategy roles, he connected decades-ahead trends to present-day choices. Trained as an engineer, he has also overseen major defense technology programs and worked where technical depth meets statecraft.
Baker’s work at CFR examines how institutional thought leadership should be transformed in the age of artificial intelligence and U.S.-China competition and explores the strategic and military implications of frontier technologies in defense innovation between the United States, its allies, and its adversaries. Those topics are deeply aligned with CFR’s mission to inform U.S. engagement with the world through policy-relevant analysis and informed public discussion.