COL (RET.) Robert Cassidy, PHD

Robert Cassidy is the Andersen Fellow in Defense and Foreign Policy at Wesleyan University. Colonel (Retired) Cassidy has Master’s degrees in International Relations and Security Studies from Boston University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the Naval War College. He earned the Diplome d’Etudes Superieures de Defense from the Ecole de Guerre and received his doctorate from the Fletcher School. He is the author of three books: War, Will, and Warlords; Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror; and Peacekeeping in the Abyss. He taught on the Strategy and Policy and Joint Military Operations faculty at the Naval War College, where he also served as the Senior Army Advisor and as a CNO Fellow in the CNO Strategic Studies Group. Cassidy has served as a special assistant to two senior commanders in Afghanistan, a director of assessments for the Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan, a Task Force 714 chief planner and liaison to Afghan theater commander, a battalion commander in Kuwait, and as a special assistant to the US Army Europe Commander.