December 11, 2018

People are now exposed to more information than ever before, provided both by technology and by increasing access to every level of education. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism: average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats, and all voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness. This has led not only to the dismissal by the American public of expertise, but it has crippled informed debates on any number of issues, and especially on national security and foreign affairs. This is a threat not only to the future of our democratic institutions, and to our security and survival as a nation.

Tom Nichols is a Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. He is also an adjunct professor at the Harvard Extension School, and in the U.S. Air Force School of Strategic Force Studies. Nichols was personal staff for defense and security affairs in the United States Senate to the late Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania, and was a Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. He is currently a Senior Associate of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs in New York City, and a Senior Fellow of the Graham Center for Contemporary International History at the University of Toronto. He was also a Fellow in the International Security Program at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University.

A former Secretary of the Navy Fellow at the Naval War College, he previously taught international relations and Soviet/Russian affairs at Dartmouth College and Georgetown University. He is a former chairman of the Strategy and Policy Department at the Naval War College, for which he was awarded the Navy Civilian Meritorious Service Medal in 2005. He holds a PhD from Georgetown, an MA from Columbia University, the Certificate of the Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia, and a BA from Boston University.

His newest book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters, was released by Oxford in March 2017, and became a best-seller, with translations into eleven foreign languages. He has written commentary for a number of media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and USA Today, where is a member of the Board of Contributors. In 2017, he was named one of the POLITICO 50 by POLITICO magazine, an annual list of “the key thinkers, doers and visionaries who are reshaping American politics and policy.”

He is also a five-time undefeated Jeopardy! champion, and was noted in the Jeopardy! Hall of Fame after his 1994 appearances as one of the all-time best players of the game.