Emma Ashford

Emma Ashford is a resident senior fellow with the New American Engagement Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, which focuses on challenging the prevailing assumptions governing US foreign policy and seeks to develop effective solutions that preserve America’s security and prosperity. Her work focuses on questions of grand strategy, international security, energy, and the future of US foreign policy. She specialize in the politics of Russia, Europe, and the Middle East.

Previously, Emma was a research fellow in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, where she worked on a variety of issues including the US-Saudi relationship, the usage and efficacy of sanctions, US policy towards Russia, the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, and US foreign policy and grand strategy more broadly. Emma founded and co-hosted the Power Problems podcast, and her long-form writing has been featured in publications such as Foreign Affairs, the Texas National Security Review, and Strategic Studies Quarterly, while her opinion writing has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, Vox, The National Interest, and War on the Rocks, among others.

Emma also write a bi-weekly column, “It’s Debatable,” for Foreign Policy, and am a regular contributor to Inkstick. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and holds a PhD in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.