Dr. Scott Silverstone

Dr. Scott Silverstone is a Professor of International Relations in the Department of Social Sciences, where he has served on the faculty since 2001. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of New Hampshire. His research interests focus on great power politics, international security, international crises, preventive war, and Ancient Greece. He is the author or co-author of four books - Understanding Near Crises and Escalation in World Politics (2025), From Hitler’s Germany to Saddam’s Iraq: The Enduring False Promise of Preventive War (2018), Preventive War and American Democracy (2007), and Divided Union: The Politics of War in the Early American Republic (2004) – and numerous articles and book chapters on international politics. He is currently writing a book that explores the origin story and character of the ancient Athenian empire in the 5th century BC and how these contributed to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War with Sparta. He is a Senior Fellow with the Future Security Initiative at Arizona State University and New America and a Senior Fellow with the Center on the Study of Statesmanship at Catholic University.

Earlier in his career Dr. Silverstone was a U.S. naval officer. He served as a Naval Flight Officer with a P-3 Orion squadron based at Naval Air Station Barbers Point in Hawaii from 1987 to 1990, deploying extensively throughout the western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and East Africa conducting anti-submarine operations and maritime reconnaissance. From 1990 to 1993 Dr. Silverstone served as a crisis management officer and planner on the staff of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Plans, Policy, and Operations in the Pentagon. In this position Dr. Silverstone managed the Navy's portion of the White House-directed nuclear attack survivability program and directed all Navy participation in the Joint Chiefs of Staff-sponsored global crisis management exercise program and the NATO crisis exercise program. In September 1992 he was appointed Director of the Navy Staff's Crisis Action Center to focus on Operation Southern Watch in Iraq, the naval embargo against Yugoslavia, and the Navy's role in hurricane Andrew relief in southern Florida. He also served as the Navy representative with the inter-agency team that planned Operation Restore Hope in Somalia. After leaving active duty Dr. Silverstone served as a Naval Reservist in support of the Navy Command Center in the Pentagon from 1994 to 2000.