Lionel Beehner, Ph.D.
Foreign Military Studies Office
U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command
Dr. Lionel Beehner is a Senior Analyst (contract) at the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO), with a primary focus on Russia.
Dr. Beehner previously worked as Director of Research at the Modern War Institute at West Point, where he led summer staff rides to the former USSR, including Ukraine, Georgia, and Baltic States, and published widely on Russian military doctrine and strategy, information operations, and hybrid warfare. From 2019-2020, he was an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, based at the UN Department of Peace Operations, working on issues of technology and security and drafting speeches, policy memos, and opinion pieces for DPO’s undersecretary general. He was formerly a Senior Staff Writer at CFR.org, where he focused on Russian and Eurasian issues. and has written for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Military Review, Parameters, Orbis, The New Republic, Guardian, Slate, USA Today, Huffington Post, and The Atlantic Monthly. Beehner is currently also working as Senior Editorial Director at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, where he is responsible for leading the dean’s communications portfolio, serving as the inaugural managing editor of SIPA’s new flagship annual policy publication, and stewarding SIPA’s signature events content strategy. Beehner is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University.
He holds a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University.