About
AT A GLANCE:
Head of Net Assessments, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Headquarters
RESEARCH AREAS:
• Irregular Warfare
• Political Violence
• Strategy
• Insurgency
• Counter Insurgency
BIOGRAPHY:
David H. Ucko, Ph.D., is the Head of Net Assessments at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Headquarters. He is a former professor at the College of International Security Affairs
(CISA) of the National Defense University, Washington DC, where he taught irregular
warfare and strategy to international military and civilian practitioners. From 2019-2023,
he was the chair of CISA's Department of War & Conflict Studies (WACS) and, from 2018-2022,
the Director of the Regional Defense Fellowship Program, whereby he led the College's
international deployment of mobile education teams. Dr. Ucko is an adjunct professor
at Johns Hopkins University and a senior visiting fellow at the Department of War
Studies, King's College London.
Dr. Ucko has published several books on counterinsurgency, war-to-peace transition,
civil wars, and military intervention. Most recently, he authored The Insurgent's
Dilemma: A Struggle to Prevail (Hurst / Oxford University Press, 2022) and, with Thomas
A. Marks, Crafting Strategy for Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Analysis and Action,
2nd ed. (NDU Press, 2022). His publications also include a wide variety of peer-reviewed
articles on political violence, strategy, and irregular warfare.
Dr. Ucko was previously program coordinator and research fellow for the Conflict,
Security & Development Research Group at the Department of War Studies, King's College
London. He has also held visiting fellowships and research positions at various think-tanks,
including the RAND Corporation in Washington DC, the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik
(SWP) in Berlin, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in both
in DC and in London.
Dr. Ucko obtained his Ph.D. at the Department of War Studies in 2007, with a thesis examining the US military's institutional learning of counterinsurgency in the 2001-07 period. In 2001, he was awarded a First Class BSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and, in 2004 a MRes at the Department of War Studies.
PUBLICATIONS:
The Insurgent’s Dilemma
(Oxford University Press)
Organized Crime as Irregular Warfare: Strategic Lessons for Assessment and Response
PRISM Vol. 10, No. 3, NDU Press (Thomas Marks)
The Role and Limits of Special Operations in Strategic Competition
(NDU-CISA)
Counterinsurgency as fad: America’s rushed engagement with irregular warfare
Journal of Strategic Studies (Thomas Marks)
CONNECT / FOLLOW:
LinkedIn: @in/david-h-ucko-4827796a/
Twitter: @DavidUcko