Brian C. Chao is an assistant professor in the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval War College and an associate of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on great-power politics and China’s rise, naval power and geostrategy, and US Indo-Asia-Pacific defense and foreign policies. Dr. Chao’s book project investigates why some continental great powers are more successful than others at naval development, with an eye towards twenty-first century US-PRC relations, and is emblematic of his broader research interest in how geography affects states’ grand strategies and power projection in the international system.
Dr. Chao’s work has been published in Navies in Multipolar Worlds: From the Age of Sail to the Present (Routledge), Territory, Politics, Governance, and International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, as well as the China Brief, The Diplomat, the East Asia Forum, and The National Interest, among others. Forthcoming work will appear in an edited volume on Asia-Pacific politics.
Prior to entering academia, Dr. Chao was research associate for East Asia at Defense Group Inc. and contributing analyst on the Asia-Pacific desk at Wikistrat Inc. He holds an AM and a PhD in political science, as well as a certificate in college and university teaching, from the University of Pennsylvania; an AB in Government from Dartmouth College; and certificates in Mandarin Chinese from Peking, Tsinghua, and the National Taiwan Universities.