Georgetown security studies professor Bruce Hoffman will never forget Sept. 11, 2001 -- when the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 was deliberately crashed into the western side of the Pentagon, killing 189 people. Situated directly across from the Pentagon in his RAND Corporation office building, Hoffman felt the violent explosion of the plane’s crash and seconds later saw the devastated site of the attacked U.S. military headquarters.

“In my nearly 30 years of working in the security studies field, I had never known anyone who had been killed by terrorists or a terrorist act and unfortunately on that day … the number grew exponentially,” remembers Hoffman.

As a leading scholar on terrorism, Hoffman says Sept. 11 showed that terrorism had transformed from being a tactical challenge to a strategic one with global impacts.

“Obviously that transition made terrorism a much more prominent subject in security studies than it had been in the past,” he says. “It generated enormous interest … not just in terrorism, but also in the Middle East, South Asia and other regions of the world.”

Before coming to Georgetown, Hoffman held the corporate chair in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation, where he worked for a total of 19 years. He also was director at the nonprofit global policy think tank’s Washington office, served as RAND’s vice president for external affairs from 2001 to 2004 and was acting director of RAND’s Center for Middle East Public Policy in 2004.

A graduate of Oxford University, where he received his master’s and doctoral degrees in international relations, Hoffman also was a scholar-in-residence for counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency between 2004 and 2006.

Hoffman has dedicated his career to researching terrorism and insurgency, having conducted fieldwork in Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq, Northern Ireland, Pakistan, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Turkey and other areas plagued by terrorism.

After Sept. 11, Hoffman has been called upon frequently for his expertise by government agencies and media.

“He provided Americans with a sense of how to respond (after Sept. 11),” recalls Daniel Byman, director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown. “And when the invasion of Iraq began to sour, Bruce was on the plane to Baghdad, helping to advise U.S. officials in Iraq on how to combat the growing insurgency.”

Hoffman, now a tenured professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, remains a top adviser to the U.S. government and others around the world on terrorist issues -- regularly testifying before Congress and appearing in the media. In addition to his steady output of scholarly work, Hoffman is editor of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism as well as editor of a Columbia University Press series of publications on terrorism.

Hoffman revised, expanded and republished his book, “Inside Terrorism” (Columbia University Press, 1998), in 2006, and it continues to be an influential work on the subject of terrorism.

“This work shaped how we think about the motivations of terrorists, the history of terrorism, the changing role of the media, and other issues at the heart of understanding this deadly phenomena,” Byman says.

Hoffman is currently working on two more books, which he plans to finish during the next academic year while on sabbatical. Researching the archives in Britain, Israel and the United States, Hoffman has spent the past two-and-a-half years researching his forthcoming book on the impact terrorism has had on the Great Britain’s decision to leave Palestine in 1948. He also is editing a book with a colleague in Spain that assesses acts of terrorism since Sept. 11 -- determining whether the attacks were led from the top down or bottom up.

Awakening the Interest
Born and raised in the Bronx, Hoffman was first introduced to security studies as an undergraduate at Connecticut College, a small New England liberal arts school. Neglecting to attend new student orientation in the fall semester of 1972, Hoffman remembers being glued to the television set the first week of college as he watched the hostage situation at the Munich Olympic Summer Games unfold.

“It struck me then that terrorism was singularly poorly understood and seemed to have disproportionate impacts on governments. Governments that would consequentially change stated policies and make concessions that they swore they would never concede,” Hoffman says. “I realized that any phenomenon that can have that asymmetrical impact on governments or superpowers was being undervalued and underappreciated as an important factor in international relations.”

It was not until Hoffman’s junior year that international security became his field of interest and expertise. A dual government and history major, Hoffman was required to take an international relations class and enrolled in a course with Larry Korb, who now teaches as an adjunct in the security studies program at Georgetown. His life would never be the same, he says.

“I took (Korb’s) course, and it’s true -- a course can change your life. A teacher can change your life,” says Hoffman, who is now a colleague of his former mentor. “When I see him now on Georgetown’s campus, I always remind Korb that if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be in this field.”

Blending Scholarship and Teaching
Hoffman joined the Georgetown faculty in August 2003, first as an adjunct and later became a professor in August 2006. When he’s not advising government officials or conducting more research, he’s advising students and can be found teaching courses on the theory and practice of international security, terrorism and counterterrorism and insurgency and counterinsurgency to mostly graduate students.

“Despite the many demands on his time, Bruce is ferociously dedicated to his students, demanding excellence of them just as he demands it of himself,” says Byman. “His classes are among the most popular at Georgetown.”

Teaching courses in the security studies program, Hoffman feels fortunate to teach students with a wide range of backgrounds -- from former U.S. Navy Seals and combat aviators to U.S. diplomats and career-changing fashion designers and journalists.

“It’s through teaching that you’re able to develop, test and discuss your own new ideas with your students -- that’s the advantage of teaching at a university like Georgetown,” Hoffman says. “You can do that when you have diverse students of a high caliber.”

And it’s not just the teaching he enjoys.

“It’s fascinating when you sit with your advisees and talk about their previous careers, where they’re from and their own experiences,” he says. “That’s the other appeal about being at Georgetown.”

Matt Haygood (G’11), who is in the security studies program, feels fortunate to have Hoffman as an adviser and professor.

“Professor Hoffman encourages you to (have) dialogue, and he’s also really good at trying to get us to think and understand the underlying concepts,” says Haywood. “With both expertise in government policy and academia, he has a very unique perspective and really bridges the gap between the two.”

Working part-time as a software engineer, Haywood enrolled in the security studies program hoping to eventually move toward a career in security studies. Hoffman’s classes and advising have only helped solidify Haywood’s career decision.

Through his teaching and research at Georgetown, Hoffman has come to the conclusion that scholarship and teaching go hand in hand.

“In my classes, I have students who work in government agencies and consulting companies that deal with the same issues I’m teaching, and they often have very novel and innovative approaches to topics,” the professor says. “So for me, teaching is both stimulating and helpful for my own research because it opens up new perspectives. Having good students really breeds good teaching and good research.”

Source: Blue & Gray