Michael Desch

Michael Desch is Professor and Director of the International Security Center at the University of Notre Dame.  He was the founding Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs and the first holder of the Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security Decision-Making at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University from 2004 through 2008.  Prior to that, he was Professor and Director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky.  From 1993 through 1998, he was Assistant Director and Senior Research Associate at the Olin Institute. He spent two years (1988-90) as a John M. Olin Post-doctoral Fellow in National Security at Harvard University's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and a year (1990-91) as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California before joining the faculty of Political Science at the University of California, Riverside (1991-1993).  

He received his B.A. (With honors) in Political Science (1982) from Marquette University and his A.M. in International Relations (1984) and Ph.D. in Political Science (1988) from the University of Chicago. He has worked on the staff of a U.S. Senator, in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the Department of State, and in the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division of the Congressional Research Service.

He is author Cult of the Irrelevant: Political Science and the Relevance Question in American Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, forthcoming 2018); Privileged and Confidential: The Secret History of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2012) with Kenneth Michael Absher, Roman Popadiuk, and the 2006 Bush School Capstone Team; Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008); Civilian Control of the Military: The Changing Security Environment (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); and When the Third World Matters: Latin America and U.S. Grand Strategy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).