Justin Anderson

Senior Fellow, Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Forces

Anderson, Justin

Areas of Expertise: Strategic deterrence (nuclear and non-nuclear); extended deterrence, and assurance; law of war, treaty law, and confidence-building measures

Dr. Justin Anderson is a Senior Fellow at NDU's Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS). His research focuses on deterrence (nuclear and non-nuclear), nuclear forces, and future nuclear arms control agreements and confidence-building measures (CBMs). He also develops and facilitates TTXs and guided scenarios on major power crises, nuclear forces, U.S. and allied CNI, and related topics. Prior to joining the Center, he was a Senior Policy analyst at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), providing research and analysis on arms control, nonproliferation, counter-WMD, and deterrence issues to the United States Air Force (USAF), USSTRATCOM, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the OSD Office of Treaty Compliance. 

Dr. Anderson, together with his co-author Lt. Col. James R. McCue, USAF, received the USSTRATCOM 2022 General Larry T. Welch Deterrence Writing Award (Senior Division) for their Spring 2021 Strategic Studies Quarterly article “Deterring, Countering, and Defeating Conventional-Nuclear Integration.” He was also the lead analyst for an SAIC research team that received the 2011 Major General Robert E. Linhard for Outstanding Research from the Air Force Institute of National Security Studies for their paper Qualitative Considerations of Nuclear Forces at Lower Numbers and Implications for Future Arms Control Negotiations.

Dr. Anderson has taught at NDU, the Defense Nuclear Weapons School, the Joint Services Command and Staff College (UK), King’s College London, and Brookes University. He was a 2003 Marshall Scholar and a 2000 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Junior Fellow. He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in War Studies from King’s College London and a B.A. in Diplomacy and World Affairs from Occidental College.

Publications