Nikolas K. Gvosdev was a senior fellow for the U.S. Global Engagement Initiative (USGE) at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
He is also a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, the director of the Policy Analysis sub-course in the National Security Affairs Department, and the Captain Jerome E. Levy Chair in economic geography and national security.
Gvosdev was the editor of The National Interest and remains a senior editor at the magazine. In addition, he holds a non-residential senior fellowship at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is a co-author of U.S. Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy: The Evolution of an Incidental Superpower (2015). He previously published Russian Foreign Policy: Interests, Vectors and Sectors (with Christopher Marsh) in 2013.
Gvosdev is a frequent commentator on U.S. foreign policy and international relations, Russian and Eurasian affairs, and developments in the Middle East.
Featured Work
FEB 19, 2018 • Article
Munich Security Conference: Mixed Messages on American Values, Engagement
The United States sent mixed signals at the 2018 Munich Security Conference. On the one hand, a bipartisan group of officials stressed continuity and legislative oversight ...
JAN 31, 2018 • Article
State of the Union: The Era of the Liberal Leviathan Is Over
Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union address–and used the rostrum in the House of Representatives to again break with some ...
JAN 26, 2018 • Article
Trump at Davos: Trickle-Down American Engagement
President Donald Trump became the first U.S. president to address the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2018, where he offered his audience of ...
DEC 20, 2017 • Article
A New World? Changes in the Global Order
Lowell Schwartz of the Naval War College says that we are in the midst of a major shift: the prevailing assumptions of the last 25 years ...
DEC 8, 2017 • Article
America's Selective Burden Shedding?
Instead of the standard "burden sharing," Daniel Hamilton says that the U.S. under Trump is engaging in "selective burden shedding." In other words, the ...
SEP 13, 2016 • Podcast
U.S. Elections & Brexit: Can Liberalism Survive?
Why are liberal values eroding across the world? Will this continue? Realist Stephen Walt says maybe not, if the U.S. can set a good ...
SEP 14, 2015 • Podcast
Russia's Soft Power: A Matter for Church and State
If other countries wish to understand Russia, they need to have a grasp of her values, which provide the moral framework for her policies and ...
JUL 20, 2015 • Podcast
Ukraine and the Future of Reforms
In May 2015, a time of crisis not only for Ukraine but also for the future of the entire EU, Cloud and Gvosdev went to Lithuania, ...
APR 16, 2014 • Article
Ukraine, The Great Powers, Budapest, and "Astheneia"
Was it unethical for the United States to give Ukraine non-binding security guarantees as an inducement for giving up nuclear weapons?
MAR 19, 2014 • Article
The Ethics of Avoiding Conflict with China
Is there a policy prescription that can avoid turning predictions of a Sino-American clash into a self-fulfilling prophecy?