Stephen Biddle
| Stephen Biddle | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 19, 1959 Wilmington, Delaware |
| Education | Harvard |
| Occupation | Author, historian, columnist, pundit, policy scholar, Professor at George Washington University |
Stephen D. Biddle (born January 19, 1959) is an American author, historian, policy analyst and columnist whose work concentrates on U.S. foreign policy. Currently, he is a Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the George Washington University. He is perhaps best known for his award-winning 2004 book Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, published through Princeton University Press. He also has worked in groups under Generals Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus forming U.S. counter-insurgency policy.
Biddle was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware, the son of Robert D. and Blanche V. Biddle. His parents frequently discussed politics, and they welcomed his input. Biddle later remarked that such debates took place "from almost as far back as I can remember" and that his father expressly encouraged him to think for himself. Biddle spent a lot of his childhood reading about military history and foreign affairs.
Biddle worked in internships in Washington D.C. that involved studying U.S. defense policy, but he remained skeptical as to whether he could (as he later put it) "actually make a living and pay the rent and eat regularly while doing this." Biddle earned a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts from Harvard, which had mostly involved reviewing art history, in 1981.
His first job after earning his degree was at a public policy think tank in the Washington, D.C. area that worked with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He went on to operate 400,000-line Fortran models of combat scenarios outcomes between the Warsaw Pact and NATO from 1981 to 1983. Biddle's suspicions about the model's accuracy and about Defense Department statistical planning in general would later inspire the material in his first book, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle.
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