Janine Davidson Joins CFR as Senior Fellow for Defense Policy

Janine Davidson, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for plans, has joined the Council on Foreign Relations as a senior fellow. She will be based in the organization’s Washington, DC, office and will address defense strategy and policy, military operations, national security, and civil-military relations. She has been a CFR member since 2009.

From 2009 to 2012, Davidson served in the Obama administration as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for plans, where she oversaw the development of guidance for military campaign and contingency plans. She also led policy efforts related to the U.S. military’s presence around the world, including the military’s rebalance to Asia. Before joining CFR, Davidson was an assistant professor at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University.

Previously, Davidson served as director for stability operations capabilities in the Department of Defense, where she founded and directed the Consortium for Complex Operations to enhance the military’s performance in counterinsurgency, disaster response, and humanitarian missions. She began her career in the Air Force, where she flew combat support and humanitarian air mobility missions in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East and was an instructor pilot at the U.S. Air Force Academy. She is the author of the 2010 book Lifting the Fog of Peace: How Americans Learned to Fight Modern War.

Davidson earned her PhD and master’s degrees in international studies from the University of South Carolina and her bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder.