Experts

Philip B. K. Potter

Faculty Senior Fellow
CV Potter 1.pdf

Fast Facts

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • American Defense and Security
  • War and Terrorism
  • Asia
  • Politics

Philip Potter is the executive director of the National Security Data and Policy Institute, the University of Virginia’s sixth university-level institute. A professor of public policy and the founding director of the Frank Batten School's National Security Policy Center, Potter’s decades of research have focused on U.S. foreign policy, military affairs, data analysis, and international security. He serves as a university expert for the intelligence community and a senior advisor in the Department of Defense. He is an active voice in both academia and government on national security research and policy.

Potter’s latest book with Chen Wang, Zero Tolerance: Repression and Political Violence on China’s New Silk Road, was released by Cambridge University Press in October 2022. Drawing on extensive original data, Potter and Wang demonstrate that China’s harsh policies are driven by deep insecurities about the stability of the regime and its claim to legitimacy. These perceived threats to core interests drive the ferocity of the official response to Uyghur aspirations. The result is harsh repression, sophisticated media control, and selective international military cooperation. The implications of the regional conflict are, however, global.

Potter’s 2015 book with Matthew Baum, War and Democratic Constraint, was named a CHOICE academic title. Potter has published in a wide array of peer-reviewed and popular outlets. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Politics and the Journal of Global Security Studies and is an associate principal investigator for Time-Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences (TESS). Potter has been a fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Featured Publications

Zero Tolerance
Zero Tolerance

Philip B.K. Potter (co-author)

War and Democratic Constraint
War and Democratic Constraint: How the Public Influences Foreign Policy

Philip B.K. Potter (co-author)

Philip B. K. Potter News Feed

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Q&A: How might the US-Israel attacks on Iran reshape the region?
In a series of coordinated attacks, the United States and Israel have “decapitated” the Iranian government by killing its leadership and devastating the country’s defense capabilities. Philip Potter, professor of public policy at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and director of the National Security Data and Policy Institute, says the military action may be “resetting the table.”
Philip Potter UVA Today
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Miller Center panelists discuss conflict with Iran, effects on U.S. foreign policy
Panelists emphasized the dueling political and military motives for President Trump’s recent strikes in Iran and discussed the unprecedented nature of ‘decapitating’ a regime
William Antholis, Philip Potter, Eric Edelman, and Mara Rudman The Cavalier Daily
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Iran and the evolving crisis in the Middle East
In a special pop-up event, Miller Center experts discuss the unfolding crisis in Iran and the broader Middle East.
Mara Rudman, Eric Edelman, Philip Potter, and William Antholis Miller Center Presents
War on the Rocks
Recalibrating U.S. Intelligence Strategy for an Uncertain Global Order
In the wake of 9/11, the newly established Office of the Director of National Intelligence produced the nation’s first National Intelligence Strategy, a document explicitly intended to guide reforms to the intelligence community and help prevent another terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland. The challenges U.S. intelligence faces today are no less dramatic. While crises in Ukraine, Iran, and Venezuela have each been driven by their own internal logics, together they reflect profound shifts in the balance and nature of power as a new international order begins to take shape.
Philip Potter War on the Rocks
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The Trump doctrine: America First revisited
Given recent months of international upheaval, the Miller Center convenes a panel of experts in foreign policy, defense, diplomacy, and international economics to discuss the state of U.S. foreign policy. Panelists will focus on the war in Ukraine, the state of Middle East tensions, the Trump administration’s approach to tariffs, and what all of this tells about President Trump’s evolving foreign policy doctrine.
William Antholis, Jeffrey Legro, Philip Potter, Mara Rudman, Stephen Mull, and John Owen Miller Center Presents
HEADLINE
For 80 years, nuclear weapons have been the unused threat
Philip Potter, professor of public policy at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and director of the National Security Data and Policy Institute, said he worries about the current delicate nuclear balance.
Philip Potter UVA Today