Daniel Byman
American political scientist (born 1967)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Daniel L. Byman (born 1967[1]) is an American political scientist. His research focuses on terrorism, Counterterrorism and the Middle East.[2] Byman is currently a professor in Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service and director of Georgetown's security studies program[3] He is a former Vice-Dean of the school.
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1967 (age 58–59)
Daniel L. Byman | |
|---|---|
Byman in March 2012 | |
| Born | Daniel L. Byman 1967 (age 58–59) |
| Education | Amherst College (BA) |
| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD) |
| Occupation | Political scientist |
| Employer | Georgetown University |
Byman is Senior Advisor to the U.S. Department of State as part of the International Security Advisory Board, a senior fellow with the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Foreign Policy Editor for Lawfare.[4]
Byman played key roles in the post 9/11 intelligence committees and in many distinguished think tanks. He was a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.[5] He was also the research director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation.[6]
He is also the lead course instructor for Georgetown's massive open online course on Terrorism and Counter Terrorism.
Education
Byman holds a BA from Amherst College and a PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[7]
Career
Byman was a professional staff member on both the 9/11 Commission and the Joint 9/11 Inquiry staff of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
Early in his career, he served as an analyst for the U.S. government.[8]
Publications
Byman's book Road Warriors: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad, published by Oxford University Press in 2019, provides a sweeping history of the jihadist foreign fighter movement. He also authored the book, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know, published by Oxford University Press in 2015.[9]
Byman's article in The Atlantic entitled "Left Wing Terrorism is on the Rise" defined terrorism as "attacks or plots by a nonstate actor attempting to achieve a political end and exert a psychological influence on a broad population".[10] With Riley McCabe, Byman analyzed 750 attacks and plots in the United States from 1994 through 2025, finding that 2025 was the first year in which far-left attacks outnumbered far-right attacks.[10][11][12]
Selected bibliography
- Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements. Rand Corporation. 2001. ISBN 978-0-8330-3052-8.
- Keeping the Peace: Lasting Solutions to Ethnic Conflicts. JHU Press. 2002. ISBN 978-0-8018-6804-7.
- Daniel Byman; Matthew Waxman (2002). The Dynamics of Coercion: American Foreign Policy and the Limits of Military Might. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00780-1.
- Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism. Cambridge University Press. 2005. ISBN 978-0-521-83973-0.
- Daniel Byman; Kenneth M. Pollack (2007). Things fall apart: containing the spillover from an Iraqi civil war. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 978-0-8157-1379-1.
- A High Price:The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism. Oxford University Press, US. 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-983174-6.[13][14][15]
- "The Wobbling Red Line in Syria", op-ed, New York Times. May 4, 2013. "Empty threats weaken America's credibility", regarding President Obama's "red line" comment on Syria's chemical weapons.
- Road Warriors: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad. Oxford University Press. 2019. ISBN 978-0-19-064651-6.
- Spreading hate: the global rise of white supremacist terrorism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2022. ISBN 978-0-19-753761-9. OCLC 1306536004.