Status
Assistant Professor
Contact
ejdahl@nps.edu
Research Interests
Intelligence; Terrorism; Security studies; National security policy; International relations theory |
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Biography
Erik J. Dahl joined the faculty of the Department of National Security Affairs as an assistant professor in September 2008. He received his Ph.D. from The Fletcher School of Tufts University, from which he also received a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy. Before joining NPS, from 2006 to 2008 Dahl was a pre-doctoral research fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Dahl retired from the U.S. Navy in 2002 after serving 21 years as an intelligence officer. From 1999 to 2002 he served on the faculty of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, where he taught courses on joint military operations, intelligence, and the future of warfare.
His research focuses on intelligence, terrorism, and security studies. He is currently working on several projects related to intelligence and terrorism, including revising for publication his dissertation, titled Preventing Terrorist Attacks: Intelligence Warning and Policy Response. In this work he examines the puzzle of why major terrorist attacks such as the 9/11 attacks and the East Africa embassy bombings of 1998 frequently succeed, even though later investigations invariably find that intelligence information had been available which could have prevented the attack. To explain the puzzle Dahl proposes a theory of actionable intelligence, which he tests against case studies of intelligence successes and failures. In a separate project, he is conducting a study of unsuccessful terrorist plots against Americans during the past twenty years, in which he argues there are important lessons to be learned from these “plots that failed.”
Dahl’s work has been published in The Journal of Strategic Studies, the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Joint Force Quarterly, Defence Studies, and The Naval War College Review.
Prior to arriving in Monterey, he frequently served as an analyst for Boston and New England newspapers and television stations concerning intelligence, terrorism, and national security. In addition to his Ph.D. and MALD from the Fletcher School, he holds master’s degrees from the London School of Economics and the Naval War College, and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College.
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