Paul Bracken is a professor of political science and business at Yale University. Bracken is a respected thought leader in global competition and the strategic application of technology in business and defense. His research and teaching focus on solutions for senior management as it deals with a changing strategic environment and conditions of intense uncertainty. He is a leading teacher in executive education and has run programs for companies in finance, technology, retail, and health care. He is also a frequent teacher at One Day University on topics such as Problem Framing in Business, the Future of the Corporation, Big Business and Democracy, and the Second Nuclear Age. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has served on the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel, the Board of Advisors of the Naval Postgraduate School and the U.S. Naval War College; and an advisory group for Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has been a visiting scholar at the CIA and Beijing University; and has consulted with many other branches of the US Government. He is a consultant to the Office of Net Assessment, and Senior Fellow and member of the Board of Advisors at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Bracken is included in Princeton Review’s book on The Best 300 Professors in the United States. He also consults with several private equity firms, sovereign wealth firms, insurance companies, banks, and technology companies, and to the RAND Corporation. He is the author of six books on global business, warning and risk, national security and world order and has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Newsweek, and Foreign Affairs. Prior to joining Yale, he was on the senior staff of the Hudson Institute for 10 years, where he worked closely with its founder, Herman Kahn, on futurology projects in business and defense. He directed the management consulting arm of the institute. At Yale he is a Fellow of Silliman College, a member of the Elizabethan Club, and the Yale MacMillan Center. He lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut with his wife, Nanette, an attorney. He enjoys golf and ham radio. Professor Bracken grew up in Philadelphia. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Columbia University and his PhD in Operations Research from Yale University.
War Games Professor Bracken frequently uses role playing war games for organizations facing complex new situations. He has designed and run games for the US Government on strategic nuclear war, with personal play by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ; and for the White House on a terrorist strike on Wall Street, played in the World Trade Center. He has recently run business war games for corporations on:
Expansion of the Panama Canal and its implications for infrastructure, private equity, transportation, and energy sectors
Reforging European Security, Cambridge University Press, 1990
', Yale University Press, 1983 – reviewed on page 1 of the New York Times Book Review by McGeorge Bundy, and page 1 of the Washington Post Book Review by Desmond Ball
Selected Articles and Chapters
Foreign Policy Research Institute e-note, February 2018
“New Technology and World Order,” in Strategic Latency: Managing the National and International Security Consequences of Disruptive Technologies
The Strategist January 2018
“The Cyber Threat to Nuclear Stability,” Orbis Summer 2016
The American Interest, Fall, 2007
"Financial Warfare" Orbis, Fall 2007
Parameters, Spring 2006
"Business War Gaming" Scenario & Strategy Planning, 2001
