John Nagl

President, Center for a New American Security

John Nagl is president of the Center for a New American Security and a visiting professor in the War Studies Department at Kings College of London. Nagl retired from the US Army after 20 years with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He led a tank platoon in Operation Desert Storm and served as the operations officer of a tank battalion task force in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has taught national security studies at West Point and served as military assistant to the deputy secretary of defense. Nagl is the author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (2002) and was on the writing team that produced the US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.