Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

Zack Cooper is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies US strategy in Asia, including alliance dynamics and US-China competition. He also teaches at Princeton University and is currently writing a book that explains how militaries change during power shifts.

Before joining AEI, Dr. Cooper was the senior fellow for Asian security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He previously worked as codirector of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He also served as assistant to the deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism at the National Security Council and as a special assistant to the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy at the Department of Defense.

Dr. Cooper has been published in academic journals, including International Security and Security Studies, and in the popular press, such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, among other outlets. He has also authored a variety of studies on Asia, on topics including US military strategy and posture in Asia, Chinese coercion, and US defense cooperation with regional allies and partners. He is the coeditor of two books,
Postwar Japan: Growth, Security, and Uncertainty Since 1945 (CSIS/Rowman & Littlefield, 2017) and Strategic Japan: New Approaches to Foreign Policy and the U.S.-Japan Alliance (CSIS/Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).

Dr. Cooper graduated from Princeton University with a PhD and an MA in security studies and an MPA in international relations. He received a BA in public policy from Stanford University.

Research interests: Asia, alliances, defense strategy, military technology, U.S. foreign policy, U.S.-China competition