The International Security Studies Brady-Johnson Grand Strategy Lecture Series presents:
US Naval Academy Professor Aaron O’Connell: “Moving the Mountains: Cultural Friction in the US War in Afghanistan.”
Bio:
Aaron O’Connell is an Associate Professor of History at the United States Naval Academy. He received his Ph.D. in History from Yale in 2010 and is the author of “Underdogs: The Making of the Modern Marine Corps.” His scholarship broadly examines the the role of the U.S. military in American society, U.S. foreign policy, and the world. Current projects include an edited volume on culture and counterinsurgency in Afghanistan authored by military veterans and diplomats, and an investigation of U.S. military relations with China before 1941.
Professor O’Connell is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. He served as Special Advisor to the ISAF Commander in Afghanistan in 2010-11, as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2011-14, and as a U.S. Defense Attaché to the U.S. Embassy in South Sudan in 2014-15.
His research interests include international history and globalization studies, military history, American Studies, history of memory and trauma, and civil-military relations.