Sheena Chestnut Greitens
Editor-in-Chief
Sheena Chestnut Greitens is Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT-Austin, where she directs UT's Asia Policy Program, a joint initiative of the Clements Center for National Security and the Strauss Center for International Security & Law. She is currently a visiting associate professor of Indo-Pacific security at the U.S. Army War College, and is also a non-resident scholar affiliated with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Chestnut Greitens' research focuses on security, East Asia, and authoritarian politics & foreign policy. Her first book, Dictators and their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence (Cambridge, 2016) received multiple academic awards. Her second book, Politics of the North Korean Diaspora(Cambridge Elements Series in East Asia, 2023), addresses how authoritarian perceptions of security shape diaspora politics. She is currently finishing her third book manuscript, which examines the effect of internal security concerns on Chinese grand strategy.
Her work has appeared in academic journals and edited volumes in English, Chinese, and Korean, and in major media outlets. Her research has been published in International Security, International Organization, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, Governance, Asian Survey, China Quarterly, and the Journal of Korean Studies, as well as Foreign Affairs and the New York Times, among other outlets. She regularly testifies to Congress on challenges to security and democracy in the Indo-Pacific.
From 2015-2020, Chestnut Greitens was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri, and founding co-director of MU's Institute for Korean Studies. She was also previously a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Korea Chair. In 2017-18, as First Lady of Missouri, Chestnut Greitens co-led the state's trade missions to China and South Korea, and ran an interagency policy initiative that resulted in major legislative and executive-branch reforms to Missouri's policies on foster care, adoption, and prevention of child abuse and neglect. An advocate for women's leadership in public policy, she also worked to appoint women to statewide boards and commissions.
She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University; an M.Phil from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar; and a bachelor's degree from Stanford University.
Author's Articles
Virtuous Violence and the Psychology of Nuclear Escalation
The article discussed is “When Our Minds Go Nuclear: Rethinking Nuclear Strategy Through the Psychology of Risk and Decision-Making.” YouTube · Spotify · Apple Podcasts · Amazon Music Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest…
How the Soviet Collapse Shaped North Korea
Dr. Young argues that the fall of the USSR profoundly influenced Pyongyang's grand strategy. Rather than embracing reform, he explains that North Korea interpreted the Soviet collapse as a failure of ideological fervor and leadership.
Deep Ocean Danger: Unveiling the Threats to Global Connectivity
Charles Mok speaks on the rising pace of attacks on undersea cable infrastructure and why these vulnerabilities remain under-discussed despite carrying about 99% of intercontinental data. He explains how growing geopolitical tension, choke points, and greater…
25 Years of the US-China Commission: Taiwan, Tech Competition, and Over-the-Horizon Risks
Twenty-five years after its creation, how does the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission evaluate the evolving threat landscape? TNSR Editor-in-Chief Sheena Chestnut Greitens hosts Randall Schriver (Chairman of the Board, Institute for Indo-Pacific…
Iran’s Nuclear Tightrope: Between Power and Peril
The article discussed is “What Good Is a Nuclear Threshold Capability? Lessons from Iran’s Nuclear Program and Recent Regional Conflict.” YouTube · Spotify · Apple Podcasts · Amazon Music Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest…
New Tech, Old Traps: The Persistent Pitfalls in Military Innovation
Herb Lin joins the podcast and explains US reliance on technological overmatch through the first offset (nuclear deterrence against Soviet conventional superiority), second offset (high-tech conventional systems like precision-guided munitions and stealth),…
The Balance of Control and Vulnerability: Cyber and Nuclear Risks
Dr. Jackie Schneider moves beyond Hollywood analogies and pop-culture fears, and argues that common understandings of how cyber operations impact nuclear stability are often misguided. She unpacks three specific pathways to escalation—deliberate,…
Challenges and Opportunities for AI in Military Systems
Michael Horowitz discusses his recent TNSR article tackling misconceptions about AI, how militaries have long used algorithms, and why use cases and data matter—especially when nuclear applications rely on simulated data. He examines human-machine teaming,…
Beyond the Hype: The Reality of Precision-Strike Weapons in Ukraine
Cameron Tracy joins to discuss his TNSR article on “technological surprise” and “normalization through use” in the Russo-Ukrainian war. He explains how forecasting about warfare often overweights extreme scenarios and is reinforced by professional and…
Psychological Biases in the Era of Nuclear Weapons and AI
Rose McDermott explains how common judgment biases can undermine nuclear deterrence and strategic stability, especially under time pressure and with emerging technologies like AI, using Kahneman’s Type 1 (fast, intuitive) and Type 2 (slow, analytic) thinking…
Understanding Schelling’s Nuclear Paradigms with Francis J. Gavin
Francis J. Gavin explains why Thomas Schelling remains foundational to nuclear strategy despite being an economist, and argues that “strategic stability” is often invoked without clear definition. He highlights tensions between mutual vulnerability and US…
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…