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Senior Research Fellow
Chris Mason is a Senior Research Fellow with the Program for Culture & Conflict Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington, DC, and the Afghanistan Desk Officer at the Marine Corps Center for Advanced Operational Culture (CAOCL) in Quantico, Virginia.
Mr. Mason is a retired Foreign Service officer. He served as the Afghanistan Policy Officer for the Bureau of Political Military Affairs at the State Department for four years beginning in June 2001, and as the bureau's representative to the Afghanistan Interagency Operations Group (AIOG) from 2001 to 2005. While at the State Department he worked closely with the intelligence community on classified projects involving tribal mapping and the tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan. .
In 2005, Mr. Mason was deployed as the Political Officer on a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) on the Pakistan border. As the senior US government civilian in the province, he traveled widely with the provincial governor, Haji Ghulab Mangal, and U.S. Army maneuver elements. Before and after that assignment, Mr. Mason has traveled frequently to Afghanistan and Pakistan on a variety of security-related projects. He has published extensively on the region, including, most recently: “No Sign until the Burst of Fire: Understanding the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier,” (International Security, Vol, 32, No. 4, Spring, 2008), "All Counterinsurgency is Local," in the October 2008 issue of Atlantic Monthly, Saigon 2009 in Foreign Policy in September 2009, all co-authored with Professor Thomas Johnson.
Mr. Mason currently lectures on counterinsurgency and information operations in Afghanistan at the National Defense University, the Joint Special Operations University, the Naval Postgraduate School and elsewhere. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Mason served as a Peace Corps volunteer and a Naval Officer on active duty from 1981-1986. He holds a Masters Degree in Military Studies from Marine Corps University and is now a PhD candidate in History at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Culture & Conflict Review Articles:
Other Publications:
Material contained herein is made available for the purpose of peer review and discussion and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of the Navy or the Department of Defense.
Contact M. Chris Mason
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