Dr. Scott Silverstone Professor of International Relations Scott.Silverstone@westpoint.edu Biography 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. He is a Senior Fellow with the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University and New America and a Senior Fellow with the Center on the Study of Statesmanship at Catholic University. He is the author of three books - 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. 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. Ongoing Research Projects Daring Beyond Reason: The Origins of an Ancient Superpower and the First Great War. This book project explores the origin story of the Ancient Athenian empire in the 5th century BC, in the aftermath of the Persian invasion of Greece in 480/479. Thirteen years after this near-death experience, Athens was the undisputed maritime superpower of the eastern Mediterranean. Imperial Athens shaped the great power politics of Greece in profound ways, and as this book will argue, Athenian behavior over the fifty-year period after the Persian invasion was the most important factor that fed the spiraling crisis that ended in the first Great War in history, between the Athenian empire and Sparta’s Peloponnesian League. Publications & Presentations BooksFrom Hitler’s Germany to Saddam’s Iraq: The Enduring False Promise of Preventive War. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2018.Preventive War and American Democracy. New York: Routledge Press, 2007. *Chinese language version of Preventive War and American Democracy. Beijing: HuaXia Publishing House, 2014.Divided Union: The Politics of War in the Early American Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.Articles, Books Chapters, & Other Scholarly Work“What Thucydides Trap? Power, Threat, and the Great War that Ripped throughClassical Greece.” The Sources of Great Power Competition: Rising Powers, Grand Strategy, and System Dynamics. Eds. J. Patrick Rhamey Jr. and Spencer D. Bakich (New York: Routledge, 2025).“Great power politics and the dynamics of capability: the prevention of near-crisis escalation.” (with Edward A Gonzalez, Anne van Wijk, Shikshya Adhikari, Victor Asal, Kyle Beardsley, Nakissa Jahanbani, Patrick James, Suzanne Weedon Levy, Steven E Lobell, Norrin M Ripsman, Scott A Silverstone, Grace Sorci). Research Handbook on Conflict Prevention. (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024).“Tipping Points: Challenges in Analyzing International Crisis Escalation.”(with Chong Chen, Jordan Roberts, Shikshya Adhikari, Victor Asal, Kyle Beardsley, Edward Gonzalez, Nakissa Jahanbani, Patrick James, Steven E Lobell, Norrin M Ripsman, Scott Silverstone, Anne van Wijk). International Studies Review. Vol. 24, Iss. 3 (2022).The Near Crisis Project: Defense Implications for U.S. and NATO Policymakers and their Staffs. (with Edward A Gonzalez, Anne van Wijk, Shikshya Adhikari, Victor Asal, Kyle Beardsley, Nakissa Jahanbani, Patrick James, Suzanne Weedon Levy, Steven E Lobell, Norrin M Ripsman, Scott A Silverstone, Grace Sorci). West Point Press Whitepapers (2022).