Zack Cooper is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies US strategy in Asia, including alliance dynamics and US-China competition. He also teaches at Georgetown University and Princeton University, codirects the Alliance for Securing Democracy, and cohosts the “Net Assessment” podcast. Dr. Cooper is currently writing a book that explains how to predict the future path of US-China military competition by examining how militaries change during power shifts.

Before joining AEI, Dr. Cooper was the senior fellow for Asian security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He also served as assistant to the deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism at the National Security Council and as a special assistant to the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy at the Department of Defense.

Dr. Cooper has been published in several academic journals, including International Security, Security Studies, and the US Naval War College Review. He has also coauthored a variety of studies on Asia, including such topics as US military strategy and posture in Asia, Chinese coercion, and US defense cooperation with regional allies and partners. He is the coeditor of two books, “Postwar Japan: Growth, Security, and Uncertainty since 1945”(CSIS/Rowman & Littlefield, 2017) and “Strategic Japan: New Approaches to Foreign Policy and the US-Japan Alliance”(CSIS/Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).

Dr. Cooper graduated from Princeton University with a PhD and an MA in security studies and an MPA in international relations. He received a BA in public policy from Stanford University.