Geoffrey Kemp, Ph.D.

Dr. Geoffrey Kemp is Director of Regional Security Programs at the Center for the National Interest and co-chairs the Iran Futures Project with Dr. Janne Nolan. He was previously Director of the Middle East Arms Control Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and also served in the White House during the first Reagan administration. He has studied and worked in international relations for 50 years, with a particular interest in U.S. policy in the greater Middle East.

Dr. Geoffrey Kemp is Director of Regional Security Programs at the Center for the National Interest and co-chairs the Iran Futures Project with Dr. Janne Nolan. He also teaches a seminar on U.S. Middle East policy at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

He was previously a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where he was Director of the Middle East Arms Control Project. Prior to this, he served in the White House during the first Reagan administration as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs on the National Security Council Staff. In the 1970s he worked in the Defense Department in the Policy Planning and Program Analysis and Evaluation Offices and made major contributions to studies on U.S. security policy and options for South West Asia.

From 1970 to 1980, he was a tenured member of the faculty of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

His particular areas of interest focus on U.S. policy in the greater Middle East including the geopolitics of energy in the Caspian Basin and Persian Gulf, the Arab-Israeli peace process, and U.S. relations with Iraq and Iran.

He is the author or co-author of many books and monographs on regional security, including Point of No Return: The Deadly Struggle for Middle East Peace; Energy Superbowl: Strategic Politics and the Persian Gulf and Caspian Basin; Iran and Iraq: The Shia Connection, Soft Power, and the Nuclear Factor; and The East Moves West: India, China, and Asia’s Growing Presence in the Middle East. He frequently comments and writes on U.S. foreign policy in the U.S., European, Middle East, and East Asian media.

Dr. Kemp received his Ph.D. in Political Science at M.I.T. and his M.A. and B.A. degrees from Oxford University.