George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies

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	Faculty Biographies
	• Professor Michael N. Schmitt Dean and Professor of International Law • Ralph R. "Rick" Steinke Deputy Dean (U.S.) • Dr. Robert Brannon Director, Program in Advanced Security Studies and Professor of National Security Studies • Colonel Steven J. Briggs Executive Director, Program for Security, Stability, Transition and Reconstruction • Colonel Todd Brown Military Professor of International Security Studies • Lieutenant Colonel Christopher G. Cavoli Deputy Director, Program in Security, Stability, Transition and Reconstruction • Rear Admiral (L) Alberto Cervone Professor of Security Studies • Dr. John L. Clarke Professor of Leadership, Management and Defense Planning and Director, Program on Civil Security • Dr. Sabine Collmer Director, Research Program • Dr. Sharyl Cross Professor of National Security Studies • Colonel Peter Durr Deputy Director, Senior Executive Seminar and Professor of Security Studies • Captain Dean L. Dwigans Judge Advocate General’s Corps - U.S. Navy • Mr. Alexander Borissovitch Garin Professor of National Security Strategy • Dr. Gregory Gleason Professor of Eurasian Security Studies • Dr. Christopher C. Harmon Director, Program on Terrorism and Security Studies • Dr. Natalie Hassman Professor of Eurasian Studies • Commander Diplom Ingenieur Andreas Hildenbrand Lecturer and Tutor • Lieutenant Colonel John J. Kane III, USMC Deputy Director, Program on Terrorism and Security Studies • Dr. Elena Kovalova Professor of National Security Studies • Professor John Kriendler Professor of NATO and European Security Issues • Dr. John J. LeBeau Professor of Strategy and Security Studies • Colonel Jeff Lee Military Professor of International Security Studies • Colonel Donald Jack Liles Commandant of the Marine Corps Chair • Dr. Dragan Lozancic Professor of Security Studies • Dr. Andrew A. Michta Professor of National Security Studies and Director of Studies of the Senior Executive Seminar • Dr. Ann L. Phillips Director, Program for Security, Stability, Transition & Reconstruction • Professor Andrew Nichols (Nick) Pratt, Colonel, USMC (Ret.) Professor of Strategy and International Politics • Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Predmore Deputy Director, Program in Advanced Security Studies • Professor Fritz Rademacher Professor of International Security Studies • Lieutenant General (ret.) Jean-Paul Raffenne Director, Senior Executive Seminar • Dr. Matthew Rhodes Professor of National Security Studies • PD Dr. Ralf Roloff Senior German Professor • Colonel Peter Schneider Professor for Security Policy • Lieutenant Colonel (GS) Nicolas v. Thaden (German Army) Military Professor and Deputy Director, Program in Advanced Security Studies • Dr. John (Jack) M. Treddenick Professor of Defense Economics • Lieutenant Colonel (GS) Hans-Joerg Voll (German Army) Military Professor and Deputy Director, Program for Security, Stabilization, Transition and Reconstruction • Dr. Petra Weyland Professor of Middle Eastern Affairs • James Kenneth Wither (UK) Professor of National Security Studies; Director, Fellows Program • Brigadier-General Mag. Karl-Alexander Wohlgemuth Professor, Program for Advanced Security Studies

Photo of Dr. Brannon

Dr. Robert Brannon
Director, Program in Advanced Security Studies and Professor of National Security Studies
College of International and Security Studies

Dr. Brannon is a Professor at the George C. Marshall European Center’s College of International Security Studies, where he serves as Director of the Program in Advanced Security Studies, the college’s largest and most comprehensive resident program. Previously, he was Chief of Naval Operations Chair at the National War College, National Defense University, in Washington, D.C., where he was a member of the faculty for four years.

Retired from active duty as a Captain in the U.S. Navy, Dr. Brannon has had the usual service at sea and in command, including assignments on the aircraft carrier USS MIDWAY (CV41) as assistant navigator, and in various flying positions in four different patrol aviation squadrons, culminating with command of VP-45 while deployed to Keflavik, Iceland. Shifting to his political-military affairs subspecialty of Russian and European affairs in 1993, he served for three years at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, helping to draft and implement the first framework documents for the Partnership for Peace. He became one of the Navy’s first Foreign Area Officers in 1998, prior to his assignment in Russia. In June 2001, nearing three years of service at the American Embassy in Moscow as the U.S. Naval Attaché, he was expelled from the country in a round of diplomatic reciprocity. Dr. Brannon was in Russia during the economic crash of August 1998, the armed riots at the American Embassy in protest of NATO’s military intervention in support of Kosovo in 1999, and the submarine Kursk disaster on August 12, 2000.

Dr. Brannon’s academic credentials include senior National Security Fellow in residence at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government 2001-2002, and International Affairs Fellow at MIT in the Seminar XXI Washington D.C. Class of 2004. Dr. Brannon has a Ph.D. in World Politics and Russian Studies, as well as an M.A. in International Affairs from The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. His published work includes a book chapter about contemporary politics in Central Asia; and a new book on civil-military relations in Russia (1996-2001), entitled Who Was Calling the Shots?, currently pending publication. His long-term interests include writing the definitive political-military story of the Russian submarine Kursk tragedy at sea in August 2000, anticipated for publication in 2010 on the tenth anniversary of the tragedy.

Publications

“Civil-Military Relations in Russia” a paper presented at the International Studies Association (ISA) annual convention in Honolulu, March 2005, 35 pages, reviewed by Dr. George MacLean, University of Manitoba, and Dr. William Hazleton, University of Ohio.
Who Was Calling the Shots? Civil-Military Relations in Russia from Yeltsin to Putin, publication pending, edited by David M. Glantz, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, January 2008, 400 pages.
“Regional Security Cooperation and Foreign Policies in Central Asia: A 21st Century “Great Game”? Chapter 20 of the book, In the Tracks of Tamerlane: Central Asia’s Path to the 21st Century, edited by Dr. Daniel L. Burghart and Dr. Theresa Sabonis-Helf (Washington, DC, Center for Technology and National Security Policy, National Defense University Press, 2004, pp 425-445).
“U.S. – Russian Relations: Cooperation in the Global War on Terrorism,” extended thesis and monograph, (Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, National Security Program, Cambridge, MA, May 2002, 105 pages).
“War in Three Cultures,” a paper on the subject of just war tradition as it is understood and applied in Christian, Judaic, and Islamic cultures, a monograph for Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, National Security Program, Cambridge, MA, November 2001, 30 pages.
Published book reviews include three on the Russian submarine Kursk disaster: Peter Truscott’s Russia’s Lost Pride, Robert Moore’s A Time to Die: The Untold Story of the Kursk Tragedy, and Ramsey Flynn’s Cry From the Deep, for the US Naval Institute Proceedings (2003-2005); and two, Peter Temes’ The Just War: An American Reflection on the Morality of War in Our Time; and Michael Abrashoff’s Get Your Ship Together: How Great Leaders Inspire Ownership from the Keel Up, for the Marine Corps Gazette (2004-2005).

Last updated: April 28, 2008