Dr. Russell Burgos is an Associate Professor in the Joint Special Operations Master of Arts program (JSOMA) at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, where he teaches Warfighter-centered courses on strategic thought, economic statecraft, information and political warfare, maritime strategy, and civil-military relations seminar on the Warrior Ethos.
An Army veteran of the Iraq war, Dr. Burgos served in enlisted, non-commissioned officer, and commissioned officer ranks. A JPME-II qualified graduate of the Joint and Combined Warfighting School, he earned a Ph.D. from UCLA with a dissertation on the use of military force in regime change. He also holds master’s degrees from The George Washington University and UCLA in national security studies and political science.
Prior to joining NDU, Dr. Burgos taught American national security policy, Persian Gulf security, homeland security, arms control, American foreign policy, international relations, international political economy, and American government at Claremont McKenna College, Pepperdine University, UCLA, and the University of Southern California. He was a Scholar-in-Residence at Boston College and at Pepperdine provided critical support for grant proposals that established the university’s dedicated program for military veteran students. At the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, he directed a military-to-military Track II diplomacy program that brought together 50-75 senior military officers and security officials from across the Middle East and North Africa in cooperation with the armed forces of host countries including France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Turkey, and the United Kingdom for biannual, week-long conferences dedicated to enduring and emerging regional security challenges and practices.
Dr. Burgos has provided subject matter expertise to US Army and joint doctrine writers; Army Special Operations Forces; Marine Expeditionary Units; local and national media; and film productions and documentarians. He has written and presented research on civil-military relations, US strategic policy in the Persian Gulf, the war in Iraq, Middle East maritime competition, national strategy and Special Operations Forces, and portrayals of the Warrior Ethos in television and film.