Adam C.

About Adam C.

Adam C (Cantab) is a strategic advisor, intelligence educator, and national security innovator with over two decades of experience shaping defense policy across U.S, allied, and multinational institutions. He served as Principal Strategist for U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), where he contributed to the design of clandestine war plans for elite mission units and led strategic planning efforts across CWMD, deterrence, and adversary emulation. He is now Director General of Contexr, a Washington D.C.–based national security startup focused on helping U.S. SOF and allied organizations prepare for great power conflict in Asia through context-rich operational and strategic design.Dr. C has lived, studied, and worked globally—including as Special Director of Strategic Programs for an Indo-Pacific allied Ministry of Defence. He earned his PhD at St John’s College, Cambridge, under Sir Harry Hinsley, wartime codebreaker and official historian of British Intelligence in WWII. His doctoral research explored the rise of non-state actors as challengers to state power—a theme that continues to inform his work on hybrid threats and strategic ambiguity.Over more than a decade, Dr. C served with distinction as a professor of strategy at the U.S. Air War College, Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and Naval War College. At Newport, he directed the Mahan Advanced Research Project—a classified Navy intel-planning cell tasked with assessing future enemy WMD concepts of operation and designing innovative deterrence strategies. The project was unique in the U.S. government for integrating J2, J3, and J5 perspectives across STRATCOM, SOCOM, and PACOM, while working closely with the Intelligence Community and National Security Council to shape America’s nuclear war plans. Dr C can be reached at C•••@contexr.com.Specialties: Strategic analysis, CWMD, Special Operations strategy and plans, intelligence, cyber warfare, energy security, defense policy, foreign policy, counterinsurgency, and Asia Pacific security.

Experience

1. Adjunct Professor of Strategic Intelligence

   National Intelligence University

   Nov 2013 — Present

   The National Intelligence University is a federal degree granting institution with a far-reaching mission — to educate and prepare intelligence officers to meet current and future challenges to the national security of the United States. Its main campus is located within the Defense Intelligence Agency Headquarters at Joint Base Anacostia Bolling (JBAB) in Washington D.C, and has graduate and academic centers with the National Security Agency and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. The NIU is a unique and technologically advanced university that focuses on the profession of intelligence and is the only institution of higher education in the nation that allows its students to study and complete research in the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (TS/SCI) arena. The University is committed to offering and continuously maintaining an in-depth curriculum intended to enhance the desired analytical skills and competencies of intelligence analysis to include critical thinking, communications, engagement and leadership. In 2012, NIU established an academic center at the U.S. Central Command’s Regional Joint Intelligence Training and Education Facility (RJITEF) on MacDill Air Force Base. The NIU Southern Academic Center offers the MSSI degree program in a part-time format with classes held two evenings per week, usually Monday and Wednesday. Classes are available to qualified U.S. federal government civilians and active duty/reserve service members in the southern region, including personnel at the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, Special Operations Command and Southern Command. Classes are held at the RJITEF and made available via JWICS video-teleconferencing to eligible locations.

Education

• The University of Texas at Austin

  BA, History, Politics

  1990 — 1990

• The Australian National University

  MA, Strategic Studies and International Relations

  1991 — 1991

• University of Sydney

  BA, History, Politics

  1989 — 1990

• University of California, Berkeley

  BA, History, Politics

  1990 — 1990

• University of Cambridge

  PhD, International History

  1992 — 1996