Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service recently announced that Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, U.S. Army (Ret.), has joined the faculty of the Security Studies Program as Visiting Professor of Strategy and Military Operations. Beginning January 2008, Meigs will teach courses on defense challenges in the 21st century and on American strategic practice, exposing Georgetown students to the complex concerns of military and civilian strategists and to the interaction of strategy, campaigns, and tactics. He will also conduct research on decision making in national security and on the process of disruptive technological innovation in defense affairs.

“We are very pleased to welcome General Meigs to the faculty of the School of Foreign Service,” said Robert L. Gallucci, dean of the School of Foreign Service. “In addition to his extraordinary experience as a commander in the field, he has also been a savvy analyst of military operations, who has the ability to integrate theory and practice in his published work as well as in the classroom.”

Meigs comes to Georgetown after serving for two years as director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the U.S. Department of Defense. Before going to JIEDDO, Meigs taught at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, where he was the Louis A. Bantle Chair of Business and Government Policy.

Meigs' distinguished career in the U.S Army includes positions as Commander, U.S. Army Europe (1998-2002), and for the first year of that assignment, Commander of SFOR, NATO’s peacekeeping force in Bosnia during NATO’s campaign to remove Serb Forces from Kosovo. From 1996 – 1997, he led the 1st Infantry Division in its deployment enforcing the Dayton Treaty in Bosnia. In addition, he has served as Commander of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (1997-1998) and Commandant of the Army’s Staff College. He also commanded the Iron Brigade of the 1st Armored Division in Operation Desert Storm, and served as a Senior Strategic Planner for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon (1987-1990) with responsibility for the National War Plan.

In addition to teaching at Syracuse University, Meigs held the Tom Slick Visiting Professorship at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. He is the author of Slide Rules and Submarines : American Scientists and Subsurface Warfare in World War II (National Defense University Press, 2002) and articles and editorials on military operations and strategy, including “Unorthodox Thoughts about Asymmetric Warfare,” Parameters, Vol. 33, no.2 (Spring 2003). He is member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is returning to NBC News as a military consultant.

Meigs received his doctorate and master's in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his bachelor's degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His awards include the Department of Defense’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Bronze Star with “V” Device and the Purple Heart.

Georgetown’s Security Studies Program was founded in 1977 and is the largest academic program in the United States devoted specifically to graduate-level, professional education in the field. The M.A. program sponsors more than 60 different courses in national and international security studies and currently has more than 225 students. More than 1,300 graduates now hold positions in the government, the defense industry and the private sector, research institutions, and non-governmental and international organizations.

The mission of Georgetown's Center for Peace and Security Studies (CPASS) is to bring together people from every relevant discipline who study international peace and security issues; to create a dynamic hub of activity that bridges the academic and policy communities; to produce a new generation of scholars, analysts and policymakers that is fully aware of the complexities of international peace and security problems; and to sponsor projects that will lead to the development of sophisticated strategies and practical policies for enhancing international peace and security in the 21st century.

(January 18, 2008)