Experts

Spencer D. Bakich

Nonresident Senior Fellow
Bakich-CV.pdf

Fast Facts

  • Director of the National Security Program, Virginia Military Institute
  • Recipient, 2023 SCHEV Outstanding Faculty Award
  • Expertise on wartime diplomacy and strategy, coercive diplomacy, American grand strategy

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • American Defense and Security
  • War and Terrorism
  • Governance
  • The Presidency

Spencer D. Bakich is a professor of international studies and the director of the National Security Program at the Virginia Military Institute. He is the co-editor of The Sources of Great Power Competition: Rising Powers, Grand Strategy, and System Dynamics (Routledge, 2024) and the author of The Gulf War: George H. W. Bush and American Grand Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era (Kansas, 2024) and Success and Failure in Limited War: Information and Strategy in the Korean, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, and Iraq Wars (Chicago, 2014), as well as articles, book chapters, and essays on wartime diplomacy and strategy, coercive diplomacy, American grand strategy, and cybersecurity. His commentary has been featured in The National Interest, USA Today, The Washington Post, and The Strategy Bridge. 

Bakich earned a BA in international affairs and economics from James Madison University (magna cum laude) and an MA and PhD in politics at the University of Virginia. He is the recipient of a 2023 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

Featured Publications

Great Power Competition
The Sources of Great Power Competition

Spencer D. Bakich (co-editor)

The Gulf War
The Gulf War

Spencer D. Bakich

Success and Failure in Limited War
Success and Failure in Limited War

Spencer D. Bakich

Spencer D. Bakich News Feed

iheart radio
Biden visits Ukraine
Senior Fellow Spencer Bakich is interviewed about President Biden's visit to Ukraine.
Spencer Bakich iHeart Radio
screenshot of podcast headline and photograph of Zhuang quilted bedcover with embroidery, patchwork and triangle pattern. Quiltmaker: Huang Biyu from Xinzhou Township, Longlin County, Baise City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. Image Source: Collection of the Anthropology Museum of Guangxi. Used with permission of the Anthropology Museum of Guangxi.
Who runs the world?
Spencer Bakich, nonresident senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, says that the two nuclear powers’ greatest military threat lies in the small, technological giant: Taiwan.
Spencer D. Bakich With Good Reason
screenshot of Miller Center event title superimposed over seal of the Central Intelligence Agency
'Undaunted': A former CIA director’s fight against America’s enemies
Spencer Bakich, nonresident senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, moderates a conversation with former CIA director John Brennan about his brutally honest memoir 'Undaunted'.
Spencer D. Bakich Miller Center Presents
Miller Center Presents
‘The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War’
Drawing extensively from the Miller Center's presidential oral histories, Craig Whitlock's new book, The Afghanistan Papers, tells the story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan. The author discusses his book with Miller Center senior fellow Spencer Bakich, an expert in U.S. national security policy.
Spencer D. Bakich Miller Center Presents
National Interest
Kim Jong-un's Demand for Self-Reliance Risks North Korean Lives
Since his assumption of power in December 2011, Kim Jong-un reinforced the state ideology of juche, which emphasizes the principles of self-sufficiency and independence in a hostile world.
Spencer D. Bakich The National Interest