Nathan K. Finney is an Army Strategist (FA59) currently serving as a special assistant to the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in the Commander’s Action Group.
Nate earned a Ph.D. in History at Duke University in 2022 while also serving as a Goodpaster Scholar. Previously, he received master’s degrees in Public Administration from Harvard University and the University of Kansas, and a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Arizona. Nate’s research focuses on national security decision-making, strategy, civil-military relations, military policy, mobilization, and war. His Ph.D. dissertation, “‘All War Arrangements are but Schools in Patience’: The North Carolina Council of Defense and the Associational State, 1917-1919” explores the creation, structure, activities, and impact of a key institution in the mobilization of the United States for the First World War, and ultimately the nature of American governance during wartime.
Nate is a managing editor at the British Journal for Military History, a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal for Military History, a senior mentor for the Project on International Peace and Security (PIPS) at the College of William & Mary, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a founder of three non-profits - The Strategy Bridge, the Military Writers Guild (and currently serving as the president), and the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum - and was a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and a former Non-Resident Fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point. Nate is the co-editor and author of the book Redefining the Modern Military: The Intersection of Profession and Ethics, and the editor and author of On Strategy: A Primer. His first academic book, “Orchestrating Power,” will be published by Cornell University Press in late 2025.
You can contact Nate on BlueSky.