Alexander Bick

Former Fellow

September 3, 2019 – August 31, 2024

Professional Affiliation

Director for Strategic Planning, National Security Council

Expert Bio

Alexander Bick is Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council. He has nearly twenty years of experience in international security, complex crises, and strategic planning. Before joining the Biden administration, he was Associate Director and Research Scholar at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins-SAIS. Previously, he served in the Obama administration, first in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations and the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, and then as Director for Syria at the National Security Council. In the latter capacity, Alex helped to devise and coordinate the U.S. strategy to defeat the Islamic State. Earlier in his career, he worked for The Carter Center, where he directed international election observation missions in Liberia and Libya, and in the UK Parliament, where he staffed Julia Drown MP, a leading advocate for debt relief and international development. A trained historian, Alex is the author of "Minutes of Empire: The Dutch West India Company and Mercantile Strategy," forthcoming from Oxford University Press. He holds a BA in political science from the University of Chicago, an MSc in economic history and Diploma in economics from the London School of Economics, and a PhD in history from Princeton University.

�� Project

Quagmire: Russia and the United States in Syria

Project Summary

Russia’s military intervention in September 2015 fundamentally reshaped Syria’s civil war, consolidating President Bashar al-Asad’s rule, enhancing Moscow’s influence across the Middle East, and placing U.S. and Russian combat forces in the same theater for the first time since the Second World War. In contrast to the prevailing public discourse on Syria, framed largely by the 1990s debate over humanitarian intervention, the project explores the war in Syria as a case study in the return of great power competition between the United States and Russia. Drawing on the author’s experience in the Obama administration, as well as interviews and memoires, the project aims to draw lessons that can help policymakers anticipate and address the challenges presented by Russia’s increasingly assertive role in international affairs.

Major Publications

“A New Cold War in the Middle East?” in , edited by Dafna H. Rand and Andrew Miller (Brookings Institution Press, June 30, 2020)
“” Just Security, December 26, 2018.
“,” with Brian Katulis, Foreign Policy, July 23, 2018
“,” SAIS Review of International Affairs, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Summer/Fall 2017), pp. 25-32.
“,” War on the Rocks, November 2, 2017.
“,” with Lisa Roman, Foreign Policy, September 15, 2017.
“,” with Salman Ahmed, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, August 17, 2017.