Bruce Jones
Director - Project on International Order and Strategy
Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for East Asia Policy Studies, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology
Bruce Jones is director and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution; he also works with the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He is also a consulting professor at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. Jones previously served as the vice president and director for the Foreign Policy program for the past five years.
Jones’ research expertise and policy experience is in international security. His current research focus is on U.S. strategy, international order, and great power relations. His most recent books on the topic are “To Rule the Waves: How Control of the World’s Oceans Shapes the Fate of the Superpowers” (Scribner, 2021); “The Marshall Plan and the Shaping of American Strategy,” (Brookings Institution Press, 2017); and “Still Ours to Lead: America, Rising Powers, and the Tension between Rivalry and Restraint” (Brookings Institution Press, 2014). He is also co-author with Carlos Pascual and Stephen Stedman of “Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats” (Brookings Institution Press, 2009); and co-editor with Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu and Pratap Bhanu Mehta of “Shaping the Emerging World: India and the Multilateral Order” (Brookings Press, 2013). Other publications include “The State of the International Order,” with Thomas Wright (Brookings, 2014); “Managing a Changing World” (Foreign Policy, March 2011); and “How Do Rising Powers Rise?” (Survival, December 2010).
Jones has conducted research focused on the geopolitics of energy and climate change. He recently co-authored with David Victor a report titled, “Undiplomatic action: A practical guide to the new politics and geopolitics of climate change” (Brookings, February 2018). Other publications include: with David Steven, “The Risk Pivot: Great Powers, International Security and the Energy Revolution” (Brookings Institution Press, November 2014); with David Steven and Emily O’Brien, “Fueling the New Order” (Brookings, April 2014); and with David Steven and Andrew Hart, “Chill Out: Why Cooperation is Balancing Conflict Among Major Powers in the New Arctic” (Brookings, 2012).
Jones has extensive experience and expertise on intervention and crisis management. He served in the United Nations’ operation in Kosovo, and was special assistant to the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process. He is co-editor with Shepard Forman and Richard Gowan of “Cooperating for Peace and Security” (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and author of “Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failures” (Lynne Reinner, 2001). He has also served in advisory positions for the U.S. State Department and the World Bank on fragile states, including as senior external advisor to the World Bank’s “2011 World Development Report on Conflict, Security and Development.”
Jones also has significant experience on multilateral institutions. He was a senior advisor to Kofi Annan on U.N. reform and served as deputy research director to the U.N.’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, as well as lead scholar for the International Task Force on Global Public Goods. Related publications include “Managing the New Threat Landscape: Adapting the tools of International Peace and Security” (Brookings, September 2018); “Beyond Blocs: The West, Rising Powers and Interest-Based International Cooperation” (The Stanley Foundation, October 2011); “Libya and the Responsibilities of Power” (Survival, June 2011); and “The G8 and the Threat of Bloc Politics in the International System” (Brookings, May 2011).
Jones has written for, appeared with, or been cited by: CNN; BBC World Service; The New York Times; Los Angeles Times; NPR; The Huffington Post; Nikkei Asian Review; Project Syndicate; “The Tavis Smiley Show”; Al Jazeera English; Reuters; Voice of America; CCTV; and Sky News.
He holds a doctorate from the London School of Economics, and he was the Hamburg fellow in conflict prevention at Stanford University.
Affiliations:
New York University, nonresident fellow
Stanford University, consulting professor
Yale Law School, Paul Tsai China Center, nonresident affiliated fellow
Bruce Jones is director and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution; he also works with the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He is also a consulting professor at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. Jones previously served as the vice president and director for the Foreign Policy program for the past five years.
Jones’ research expertise and policy experience is in international security. His current research focus is on U.S. strategy, international order, and great power relations. His most recent books on the topic are “To Rule the Waves: How Control of the World’s Oceans Shapes the Fate of the Superpowers” (Scribner, 2021); “The Marshall Plan and the Shaping of American Strategy,” (Brookings Institution Press, 2017); and “Still Ours to Lead: America, Rising Powers, and the Tension between Rivalry and Restraint” (Brookings Institution Press, 2014). He is also co-author with Carlos Pascual and Stephen Stedman of “Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats” (Brookings Institution Press, 2009); and co-editor with Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu and Pratap Bhanu Mehta of “Shaping the Emerging World: India and the Multilateral Order” (Brookings Press, 2013). Other publications include “The State of the International Order,” with Thomas Wright (Brookings, 2014); “Managing a Changing World” (Foreign Policy, March 2011); and “How Do Rising Powers Rise?” (Survival, December 2010).
Jones has conducted research focused on the geopolitics of energy and climate change. He recently co-authored with David Victor a report titled, “Undiplomatic action: A practical guide to the new politics and geopolitics of climate change” (Brookings, February 2018). Other publications include: with David Steven, “The Risk Pivot: Great Powers, International Security and the Energy Revolution” (Brookings Institution Press, November 2014); with David Steven and Emily O’Brien, “Fueling the New Order” (Brookings, April 2014); and with David Steven and Andrew Hart, “Chill Out: Why Cooperation is Balancing Conflict Among Major Powers in the New Arctic” (Brookings, 2012).
Jones has extensive experience and expertise on intervention and crisis management. He served in the United Nations’ operation in Kosovo, and was special assistant to the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process. He is co-editor with Shepard Forman and Richard Gowan of “Cooperating for Peace and Security” (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and author of “Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failures” (Lynne Reinner, 2001). He has also served in advisory positions for the U.S. State Department and the World Bank on fragile states, including as senior external advisor to the World Bank’s “2011 World Development Report on Conflict, Security and Development.”
Jones also has significant experience on multilateral institutions. He was a senior advisor to Kofi Annan on U.N. reform and served as deputy research director to the U.N.’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, as well as lead scholar for the International Task Force on Global Public Goods. Related publications include “Managing the New Threat Landscape: Adapting the tools of International Peace and Security” (Brookings, September 2018); “Beyond Blocs: The West, Rising Powers and Interest-Based International Cooperation” (The Stanley Foundation, October 2011); “Libya and the Responsibilities of Power” (Survival, June 2011); and “The G8 and the Threat of Bloc Politics in the International System” (Brookings, May 2011).
Jones has written for, appeared with, or been cited by: CNN; BBC World Service; The New York Times; Los Angeles Times; NPR; The Huffington Post; Nikkei Asian Review; Project Syndicate; “The Tavis Smiley Show”; Al Jazeera English; Reuters; Voice of America; CCTV; and Sky News.
He holds a doctorate from the London School of Economics, and he was the Hamburg fellow in conflict prevention at Stanford University.
Affiliations:
New York University, nonresident fellow
Stanford University, consulting professor
Yale Law School, Paul Tsai China Center, nonresident affiliated fellow
For centuries, oceans were the chessboard on which empires battled for dominance. But in the nuclear age, air power and missile systems dominated our worries about security, and for the United States, the economy was largely driven by domestic production, with trucking and railways that crisscrossed the continent the primary modes of commercial transit.
All that has changed, as nine-tenths of global commerce and the bulk of energy trade is today linked to sea-based flows. A brightly-painted 40-foot steel shipping container loaded in Asia with twenty tons of goods may arrive literally anywhere else in the world; how that really happens and who actually profits by it show that the struggle for power on the seas is a critical issue today.
