P.W. Singer
Peter Warren Singer is Senior Fellow and Director of the 21st Century
Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution. He is the youngest
scholar named Senior Fellow in Brookings’s 90-year history.
In 2005, CNN named him to their “New Guard” List of the
Next Generation of Newsmakers. Singer has also been recognized by the Financial Times as “Guru of the Week“ for the thinker that most influenced the world that week and by Slate Magazine for “Quote of the Day.“
Dr. Singer is considered one of the world’s
leading experts on changes in 21st century warfare. He has written
for the full range of major media and journals, including the Boston
Globe, L.A. Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs,
Current History, Survival, International Security, Parameters, Weltpolitik,
and the World Policy Journal. He has been quoted in every
major U.S. newspaper and news magazine and delivered talks at venues
ranging from the U.S. Congress to over 35 universities around the
world. He has provided commentary on military affairs for nearly
every major TV and radio outlet, including ABC-Nightline, Al
Jazeera, BBC, CBS-60 Minutes, CNN, FOX, NPR, and the NBC
Today Show. He is also a founder and organizer of the U.S.-Islamic
World Forum, a global conference that brings together leaders
from across the US and the Muslim world (www.us-islamicworldforum.org).
His first book Corporate Warriors: The
Rise of the Privatized Military Industry
(Cornell University Press, 2003) pioneered the study of the new
industry of private companies providing military services for hire,
an issue that soon became important with the use and abuse of these
companies in Iraq. The book, originally planed for a 500 copy print
run, has sold over 40,000 copies, gone through 3 print runs and
a paperback version, as well as being translated into Japanese,
Korean, Urdu, Chinese, Turkish, and Italian. It was named best book
of the year by the American Political Science Association, among
the top five international affairs books of the year by the Gelber
Prize, and a “top ten summer read” by Businessweek.
It is now in the assigned texts at venues ranging from Yale Law
School to the Army War College. Singer continues to serve as a resource
on the private military issue to the U.S. Congress, U.S. Department
of Defense, CIA, and European Union and he helped bring to light
the role of private contractors in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal
and the Halliburton contract controversies in Iraq. Singer’s
work was featured in the History Channel documentary “Soldiers
for Hire” and he served as a consultant on the topic for the
TV drama “The West Wing.”
Dr. Singer’s next book, Children
at War (Pantheon, 2005), explored the rise of another
new force in modern warfare, child soldier groups. Dr. Singer’s
“fascinating” (New York Post) and “landmark”
(Newsweek) work was the first book to comprehensively explore
the compelling and tragic rise of child soldier groups and was recognized
by the 2006 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book of the Year Award. His
commentary on the issue was featured in a variety of venues ranging
from NPR and Fox News to Defense News
and People magazine. Dr. Singer has served as a consultant
on the issue to the U.S. Marine Corps and Congress, and the recommendations
in his book resulted in recent changes in the UN peacekeeping training
program. An accompanying A&E/History Channel documentary,
"Child Warriors," was broadcast in January 2008 and won a 2008 CINE
Golden Eagle Award for excellence in the production of film, television,
video and new media. Singer also helped advise the Don Cheadle movie Traitor, as well as the upcoming 24 movie and DVD.
Dr. Singer’s upcoming book, Wired for
War (Penguin, 2009), will look at the implications of robotics
and other new technologies for war, politics, ethics,and law in
the 21st century. The work has already been featured in the video
game Full Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, as well as in
presentations to audiences ranging from the Air Force Institute
of Technology to the National Student Leadership Conference.
Prior to his current position, Dr. Singer was
the founding Director of the Project on U.S. Policy Towards the
Islamic World in the Saban Center at Brookings. He has also worked
for the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard
University, the Balkans Task Force in the U.S. Department of Defense,
the International Peace Academy, and was a policy task force coordinator
for the Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign. Singer received his Ph.D. in
Government from Harvard University and a BA from the Woodrow Wilson
School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
Click here to download
a pdf version.
Click here to download
an author photo.
|