Ryan Vest
Executive Editor
Ryan Vest is the Executive Editor of the Texas National Security Review at The University of Texas at Austin. He holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London, where he focused on Russian military and maritime strategy. He also holds a MA in National Security and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College, and a BS in Systems Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy.
Prior to joining the University of Texas team, Ryan served for 23 years as a Naval Aviator. During the last nine years of his active-duty career, he was a Military Professor at the U.S. Naval War College. He was a founding member, and later director, of both the Russia Maritime Studies Institute (RMSI) and the Holloway Advanced Research Program for the study of high-intensity conflict with Russia.
He is finishing the manuscript of his first book, Some Principles of Russian Maritime Strategy: Understanding Maritime Power in Putin’s Russia and is under contract for a second, coauthored book, Hands Bound: Russia’s Post-Soviet Navy 1990-2025. He also teaches Warfare Studies and Making Decisions: Strategy and War for the Air Force Global College’s master’s degree program.
Author's Articles
Strategic Stability in a Rapidly Changing World
Harold Trinkunas previews our special issue on strategic stability by explaining how Cold War deterrence assumptions rooted in a bilateral US–Soviet relationship no longer hold amid more nuclear-armed actors, wider access to AI, cyber, hypersonics, and the…
A Dystopian Take on Rising Authoritarianism and Resistance
Melissa Chan joins to discuss her career reporting across Asia and why she pivoted from journalism to co-creating the graphic novel "You Must Take Part In Revolution" with activist-artist Badiucao. We discuss the book’s visual style, the subversive…
The Principle of Distinction in the Autonomous Age
Are concerns about autonomous weapons overblown? In our latest episode, Nathan Wood argues that we must move past catch-all terms and focus on the distinct legal and ethical challenges of specific systems.
Ensuring US Military Readiness in the Indo-Pacific
Eyck Freymann and Harry Halem argue that the United States can sustain conventional deterrence against China into the 2030s through targeted investments in logistics and the industrial base. They join our editors to discuss why a holistic view of the military…
US Military Primacy and Alliance Resilience
In 1956, the Suez Crisis revealed the limits of British power. Could a similar event hollow out the US alliance system today? Bence Nemeth applies his "five factor theory of defense cooperation" to answer this critical question.
Conventional Options Theory in the New Nuclear Era
Tyler Bowen from the US Naval War College joins us to discuss the logic of conventional coercion in nuclear crises. As the US faces nuclear-armed adversaries like Russia and China, understanding how to "thread the needle" between defense and escalation is…
The Art and Science of Grand Strategy
Marina Henke argues that grand strategy is more than just a list of goals—it is the art and science of allocating resources to achieve core objectives under conditions of uncertainty. We explore why so many governments struggle to prioritize, the dangers of…
The Democratization of Violence in the Greater Middle East
Dr. Carter Malkasian joins us to explore how the "democratization of violence"—driven by the availability of assault rifles and explosives—empowered non-state actors and challenged state authority throughout the Cold War. The conversation also addresses…
AI Policy & Hostage Recovery with the Former Deputy Assistant to the President
Dr. Joshua Geltzer, former Deputy Assistant to the President and Legal Advisor to the National Security Council, shares his extensive experience on two crucial topics: artificial intelligence in national security and the evolving policies surrounding hostage…
Cold War Lessons for Export Controls Against China
We sit down with Dartmouth national security scholars Jennifer Lind and Michael Mastanduno as they compare Cold War export control strategies with modern attempts to limit China's access to sensitive US technologies. They delve into key lessons from the…