Kenneth Pollack

Kenneth Michael "Ken" Pollack, PhD (born 1966), is a noted former CIA intelligence analyst and expert on Middle East politics and military affairs. He has served on the National Security Council staff and has written several articles and books on international relations.

Born to a Jewish family, Pollack obtained a BA from Yale University, in 1988, and went on to earn a PhD from MIT in 1996. He has served in a variety of roles in government. From 1988 until 1995, he was analyst on Iraqi and Iranian military issues for the Central Intelligence Agency. He spent a year as Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs with the United States National Security Council. In 1999, he rejoined the NSC as the Director for Persian Gulf Affairs. He also served two stints as a professor with the National Defense University.

Outside of government, he worked for the Brookings Institution as the director of research at its Saban Center for Middle East Policy. He previously worked for the Council of Foreign Relations as their director of national security studies. He has also written four books, the first two of which were published in 2002. His first monograph, Arabs at War, examined the foreign policy of six Arab nations in the years between World War II and the Persian Gulf War.

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