Jim Townsend
Senior Associate Fellow; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy
Biography
Jim Townsend is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where he is the co-host of the podcast “Brussels Sprouts”, a weekly interview programme featuring leaders in the transatlantic defense community. He also takes part in the Washington Roundtable of the Defense and Aerospace Report podcast. Jim is a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, a Senior Advisor at the Atlantic Council and teaches a course on transatlantic security at Sciences Po Paris. He is also a consultant at WestExec.
On 20th January 2017, Jim completed eight years as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for European and NATO Policy, capping 34 years of working in defense and foreign policy, mostly on European and NATO issues. His work spanned the last decade of the Cold War, post-Cold War political reconstruction in Europe and Europe's new challenges including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the rise of China.
Before becoming DASD in 2009, Jim was a Vice President of the Atlantic Council and Director of the Council’s Programme on International Security (now the Scowcroft Center).
Jim joined the Atlantic Council in 2006 after a distinguished civil service career at the Pentagon and at NATO. In the 1990s and early 2000s, he helped to build a new post-Cold War security environment in Europe through his work in a number of offices including as the Director of the Defense Plans Division at the US Mission to NATO and as the Principal Director of European and NATO Policy. In the 1980s, Jim worked in Foreign Military Sales at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA).
In 1986, he received a direct commission in the U.S. Navy Reserve (intelligence), leaving the Reserves as a Lieutenant Commander.
Jim has been decorated by 11 European nations and multiple times by the Department of Defense for his work, including a Presidential Rank Award (Meritorious Executive). He has lectured in the US and overseas and provides commentary in the international press.
He earned a B.A. from Duke University and an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in International Economics and American Foreign Policy.