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Richard Betts

Columbia University

Richard Betts is the director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. He was director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins, served on the staffs of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the National Security Council, and the Mondale Presidential Campaign, and has been a member of the National Commission on Terrorism, National Security Advisory Panel for the Director of Central Intelligence, and External Advisory Board for the Director of the CIA. Betts is a participant in the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues Research Group on Managing Strategic Competition.

  • Author of Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises (1977); Surprise Attack (1982); Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (1987); Military Readiness (1995); Enemies of Intelligence (2007); and American Force (2012).
  • Co-author or editor of The Irony of Vietnam (1979); Cruise Missiles: Technology, Strategy, and Politics (1981); Conflict After the Cold War (2013); and Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence (2003).

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