LEADERSHIP

Liam Collins, Executive Director

Colonel (ret.) Liam Collins was a career Special Forces officer who served in a variety of special operations assignments. He conducted multiple operational deployments in support of various operations including Operational Nobile Anvil (Kosovo), Operation Joint Forge (Bosnia), Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), Operation Iraqi Freedom as well as operational deployments to South America and the Horn of Africa. Previously he served as the Director of the Modern War Institute and Director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, and from 2016-2018, he served as General (ret.) Abizaid’s executive officer for his Secretary of Defense appointment as the Senior Defense Advisor to Ukraine.

His work has been cited by the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the White House Press Secretary, The New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, ABC News, Fox News, NPR, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering (Aerospace) from the United States Military Academy and a Master in Public Affairs and a PhD from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies

John W. Spencer currently serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies where he leads all research relating to understanding the many facets of urban warfare.

He recently served as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies, Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project and host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast for the Modern War Institute at West Point. He also previously served as a Colonel in the California State Guard with assignment to the 40th Infantry Division, California Army National Guard as the Director of Urban Warfare Training. He served over twenty-five years on active duty in the Army as an infantry soldier having held ranks from Private to Sergeant First Class and Second Lieutenant to Major.

His assignments as an Army officer included two combat deployments to Iraq as both an Infantry Platoon Leader and Company Commander, a Ranger Instructor with the Army’s Ranger School, a Joint Chief of Staff and Army Staff intern, fellow with the Chief of Staff of the Army’s Strategic Studies Group, Strategic Planner and then Deputy Director of the Modern War Institute where he was instrumental in the design and formation of the institute.

His research focuses on military operations in dense urban areas, megacities, urban and subterranean warfare.

He holds a Master of Policy Management from Georgetown University.

He looks forward to connecting via Twitter @SpencerGuard.