Professor Johnson is the Director of the Program for Culture &Dr. Tom JohnsonProfessor Johnson is the Director of the Program for Culture &Conflict Studies. Under his direction, the program coordinatesanthropological research activities on the human terrain of Centraland South Asia. He was appointed to the faculty of the NavalPostgraduate School’s National Security Affairs Department in December2003. At NPS, Johnson is teaching courses on Afghanistan, CentralAsian crises, politics, terrorism, and security. He also regularlycontributes to the Regional Security Education Program and theLeadership Development and Education for Security and Peace Program atNPS where he briefs deploying troops on subjects such as Afghanistan,Iraq, WMD proliferation, and the global jihad.Professor Johnson also serves as a Senior Research Associate for NPS’Center for Contemporary Conflict where he has conducted research onAfghanistan, Central Asia, the jihad, and Terrorism.Professor Johnson serves as a member of the U.S. delegation to theNATO WMD Warning and Reporting Panel and serves as co-chairman of theNATO sub panel of NBC Communication and Information SystemInteroperability and Integration.Before joining the NPS faculty, Johnson was a Principal Senior Analystwith the Research Institute of the Illinois Institute of Technology(IITRI) and Director of the Modeling and Simulation Technical ResearchInstitute, a collaborative research and educational organizationbetween IITRI and the University of Virginia. Before coming to IITRI,Prof. Johnson was a member of the research faculty of the Institute ofPublic Policy, George Mason University.For two decades, Johnson has conducted research and written onAfghanistan and South Asia. He has directed major research efforts forthe United States Government on Afghanistan and U.S. policy towardsthis country. He has written and published numerous studies onAfghanistan and its politics, culture, and anthropology. He is amember of the Afghanistan Editorial Board of the National SecurityArchive.Johnson has also published in the areas of Central Asia andAfghanistan, insurgencies, foreign policy analysis, peaceresearch/conflict resolution, and political and defense economicsmodeling and simulation.His most recent publications include: “Rethinking Afghanistan: Echoesof Ulster and the IRA?,” Policy Options 29, No. 6 (June 2008): 14-22,with Richard English; “No Sign until the Burst of Fire: Understandingthe Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier,” International Security 32, No. 4(Spring 2008): 41-77, with M. Chris Mason; “Afghanistan: TheChallenges Ahead,” FrontLine Defence, Issue 2 (March 2008): 14-17,with Alec Metz; “Afghanistan’s Post -Taliban Transition: StateBuilding”, in Interim Governments, ed. Karen Guttieri and JessicaPiombo (Washington: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2007), 287-317; “TheTaliban Insurgency and an Analysis of Shabnamah (Night Letters),”Small Wars and Insurgencies 18, No. 3 (Sept. 2007): 317-344; “On theEdge of the Big Muddy: The Taliban Resurgence in Afghanistan,” Chinaand Eurasian Forum Quarterly 5, No. 2 (2007): 93-129; “The TalibanInsurgency and an Analysis of Shabnamah (Night Letters),” Small Warsand Insurgencies 18, No. 2 (Spring 2007, forthcoming); “ Understandingthe Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan,” with M. Chris Mason,Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs 51, No. 1, 2007; “Terrorism,Insurgency and Afghanistan,” with M. Chris Mason, in James JF Forrest,ed., Counter Terrorism in the 21st Century, Volume III: LessonsLearned From the Fight Against Terrorism (New York, Praeger,forthcoming, 2007); “Afghanistan’s Post-Taliban Transition: The Stateof State-Building after War,” Central Asian Survey 25, No. 1-2(March-June 2006), 1–26; “The Origins and Financing of AfghanTerrorism: Thugs, Guns, Drugs, Interlopers, and Creative Movements ofMoney,” in Harold A. Trinkunas and Jeanne Giraldo, eds., TerroristFinancing and State Responses: †Comparative Perspective (Palo Alto,CA: Stanford University Press, forthcoming, 2006); “Democratic NationBuilding in the Arc of Crisis: The Case of the Presidential Electionin Afghanistan,” in James A. Russell, ed., Critical Issues Facing theMiddle East Security: Security, Politics, and Economics (New York:Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 125-146; “Central Asian Terrorism: AProblem in Search of Definition and Policy,” with Colin Lober inGlobal Terrorism: Genesis, Implications, Remedial and Countermeasures(Islamabad, Pakistan: Aziz-ul-Haque Institute of Regional Studies,2006), 186-219; †“A Hard Day’s Night?: The United States and theGlobal War on Terror,” with James A. Russell, Comparative Strategy 24,No. 2, 2005, 127-151, reprinted in Countering Modern Terrorism:History, Current Issues and Future Threats (Gesamtherstellung,Germany: W. Bertelsmann Verlag, GmbH, 2005), 239-271. His earlierworks have appeared in such journals as the American Political ScienceReview, the Journal of Politics, the Brown Journal of World Affairs,Strategic Review, Politikon: South African Journal of PoliticalScience, Journal of Modern African Studies, and in numerous editedvolumes and scholarly texts.Professor Johnson has taught at the University of Southern California,George Mason University, and the Foreign Service Institute, andfrequently lectures at Service Academies and the National DefenseUniversity. He is a past recipient of the Charles E. Merriam Award forOutstanding Public Policy Research from the University of Illinois.
