Kimberly Kagan is the founder and President of the Institute for the Study of War, a non-profit, non-partisan think-tank in Washington, DC, that educates civilians about military affairs and provides strategic and operational analysis for America’s warfighters. Kagan is a military historian who has taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale University, Georgetown University, and American University. She is the author of The Eye of Command (University of Michigan Press, 2006), The Surge: a Military History (Encounter Books, 2009) and editor of The Imperial Moment (forthcoming from Harvard University Press, 2009). Dr. Kagan has published numerous essays including “Don't Short-Circuit the Surge” in the Wall Street Journal, “How to Surge the Taliban” (co-authored with Max Boot and Frederick W. Kagan) in The New York Times, and "Why the Taliban are Winning--For Now" on the Foreign Policy Magazine website. She writes a monthly column about national security for the The Washington Examiner.

Dr. Kagan has conducted seven battlefield circulations of Iraq since May 2007 for the MNF-I Commanding General, and one of Afghanistan for CENTCOM. She has participated formally on the Joint Campaign Plan Assessment Team for Multi-National Force-Iraq - U.S. Mission-Iraq in October 2008, and as part of the Civilian Advisory Team for the CENTCOM strategic review in January 2009. Dr. Kagan served in Kabul as a member of GEN Stanley McChrystal’s strategic assessment team, comprised of civilian experts, during his strategic review in June and July 2009.

Dr. Kagan held an Olin Postdoctoral Fellowship in Military History at Yale International Security Studies in 2004-2005. She is an affiliate of Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, where she was a National Security Fellow in 2002-2003. She received her B.A. in Classical Civilization and her Ph.D. in History from Yale University.