Bruce W. Bennett

Bruce W. Bennett is an adjunct international/defense researcher at the RAND Corporation. He works primarily on research topics such as strategy, force planning, and counterproliferation within the RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center.

Bennett’s work applies wargaming, risk management, deterrence-based strategy, competitive strategies, and military simulation and analysis. He specializes in “asymmetric threats” such as weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and how to counter those threats with new strategies, operational concepts, and technologies. He is an expert in Northeast Asian military issues, having visited the region over 120 times and written much about Korean security issues. He has also done work on the Persian/Arab Gulf region.

His Northeast Asian research has addressed issues such as future ROK military force requirements, understanding and shaping the ongoing Korean nuclear weapon crisis, Korean unification, the Korean military balance, counters to North Korean chemical and biological weapon threats in Korea and Japan, potential Chinese intervention in Korean contingencies, changes in the Northeast Asia security environment, and deterrence of nuclear threats (including strengthening the U.S. nuclear umbrella). He has worked with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, U.S. Forces Korea and Japan, the U.S. Pacific Command and Central Command, the ROK and Japanese militaries, and the ROK National Assembly.

Bennett received his B.S. in economics from the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in policy analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School, where he is also a professor.