Editing Kenneth M. Pollack

{{Short description|Political scientist and CIA analyst}}
{{Infobox person
|name=Kenneth M. Pollack
|image=Kenneth M. Pollack.jpg
|caption=Pollack speaking at the [[Miller Center of Public Affairs]] in 2012.
|birth_date={{birth year and age|1966}}
|nationality=American
|spouse=[[Andrea Koppel]]
|relatives=[[Ted Koppel]] (father-in-law)
}}
'''Kenneth Michael Pollack''' (born 1966) is an American former [[CIA]] [[Intelligence (information gathering)|intelligence]] analyst and commentator on [[Middle East]] politics and [[military]] affairs. He has served on the [[United States National Security Council|National Security Council]] staff and has written several articles and books on international relations. Currently, he is a resident scholar at the [[American Enterprise Institute]], "where he works on Middle Eastern political-military affairs, focusing in particular on Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf countries.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.aei.org/author/kenneth-pollack/|title=Kenneth Pollack - AEI Scholar|publisher=AEI|access-date=24 April 2019|archive-date=26 May 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200526043825/https://www.aei.org/author/kenneth-pollack/|url-status=dead}}</ref>  Before that he was Senior Fellow at the [[Saban Center for Middle East Policy]] at the [[Brookings Institution]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.brookings.edu/author/kenneth-m-pollack/|title=Kenneth M Pollack|publisher=Brookings Institution|access-date=24 April 2019}}</ref> and a senior advisor at [[Albright Stonebridge Group]], a global business strategy firm.

==Early life and education==
Born to a [[American Jews|Jewish]] family,<ref>[http://www.interfaithfamily.com/arts_and_entertainment/popular_culture/Interfaith_Celebrities_High_Holiday_Celebrity_Goings-on_a_New_Congressional_Memoir_and_a_Possible_Beatle_Conversion.shtml Interfaith Families: "Interfaith Celebrities: High Holiday Celebrity Goings-on, a New Congressional Memoir and a Possible Beatle Conversion?"] By Nate Bloom. November 8, 2011</ref> Pollack obtained a [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] from [[Yale University]], in 1988, and went on to earn a [[PhD]] from [[MIT]], under supervision of [[Barry Posen]], in 1996.

==Personal life==
Pollack is married to [[Andrea Koppel]], the daughter of the well-known broadcast journalist [[Ted Koppel]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Jerome |first1=Richard |title=News Flash |url=https://people.com/archive/news-flash-vol-59-no-11/ |work=People Magazine |date=March 24, 2003}}</ref>

==Career==
He has served in a variety of roles in government. From 1988 until 1995, he was an analyst on [[Ba'athist Iraq|Iraq]]i and [[Iran]]ian military issues for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]. He spent a year as Director for [[Near East]] and [[South Asia]]n Affairs with the [[United States National Security Council]]. In 1999, he rejoined the NSC as the Director for [[Persian Gulf]] Affairs. He also served two stints as a professor with the [[National Defense University (Washington, D.C.)|National Defense University]].

Outside of government, he worked for the [[Brookings Institution]] as the director of research at its [[Saban Center for Middle East Policy]]. He previously worked for the [[Council of Foreign Relations]] as their director of national security studies.  He has also written seven books, the first two of which were published in 2002. His first [[monograph]], ''Arabs at War'', examined the foreign policy of six Arab nations in the years between [[World War II]] and the [[Gulf War|Persian Gulf War]].

He currently is an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program of [[Georgetown University|Georgetown]]'s [[Walsh School of Foreign Service]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014RUzjAAG/kenneth-pollack |title=Kenneth Pollack: Georgetown University |website=Georgetown University |access-date=March 12, 2025 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20250312101241/https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014RUzjAAG/kenneth-pollack |archive-date=March 12, 2025}}</ref>

===Advocacy of Iraq invasion===
In his second book, ''The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq'' (pub. 2002), Pollack details the history of United States actions against Iraq since the [[Gulf War|Persian Gulf War]] of 1991. He says that the United States should invade Iraq, and describes ways of going about it. Pollack argued that [[Saddam Hussein]] was simply too volatile and aggressive in his policies to be trusted not to begin another conflict in a volatile region. In ''The Threatening Storm'', Pollack argued "the only prudent and realistic course of action left to the United States is to mount a full-scale invasion of Iraq to smash the Iraqi armed forces, depose Saddam's regime, and rid the country of weapons of mass destruction." Pollack predicted, "It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars." Likewise, he wrote, "we should not exaggerate the danger of casualties among American troops. U.S. forces in Bosnia have not suffered a single casualty from hostile action because they have become so attentive and skillful at force protection."<ref>''Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq'', Random House, 2002</ref>

Pollack is credited with persuading liberals of the case for the Iraq war. New York Times columnist [[Bill Keller]], in supporting the Iraq war in 2003, wrote "Kenneth Pollack, the Clinton National Security Council expert whose argument for invading Iraq is surely the most influential book of this season, has provided intellectual cover for every liberal who finds himself inclining toward war but uneasy about Mr. Bush."<ref>[https://www.cjr.org/on_the_contrary/the_war_expert.php?page=all The War Expert], Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 2007</ref> Liberal writer [[Matthew Yglesias]] in the ''LA Times'' also attested to Pollack's influence:

<blockquote>Of course, those of us who read Pollack's celebrated 2002 book, "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq," and became convinced as a result that the United States needed to, well, invade Iraq in order to dismantle Saddam Hussein's advanced nuclear weapons program (the one he didn't actually have) might feel a little too bitter to once again defer to our betters.<ref>[http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-yglesias2aug02,0,2911324.story D.C. elites want you to shush on Iraq], Matthew Yglesias, ''Los Angeles Times'', 2 August 2007</ref></blockquote>

Many have criticized his support for the [[Invasion of Iraq]], including Middle East correspondent [[Robert Fisk]], who called ''The Threatening Storm'' the "most meretricious contribution" to the pre-war "debate" on military action and included it in the select bibliography section of his 2005 book ''[[The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East|The Great War for Civilisation]]'' in order to "show just how specific &ndash; and misleading &ndash; were the efforts to persuade Americans to invade."<ref>Fisk, Robert (2006). ''[[The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East]]''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 922, 1062.</ref>

Many critics, as well as many of those who used the book to justify their support of the invasion, overlooked the more balanced presentation on the pros and cons of war to be found in ''The Threatening Storm''. As Chris Suellentrop of Slate pointed out before the invasion on March 5, 2003:

<blockquote>Six months after The Threatening Storm's publication, however, Pollack's book reads as much like an indictment of the Bush administration's overeagerness to go to war as it does an endorsement of it. A more appropriate subtitle for the book would have been The Case for Rebuilding Afghanistan, Destroying al-Qaida, Setting Israel and Palestine on the Road to Peace, and Then, a Year or Two Down the Road After Some Diplomacy, Invading Iraq. In interviews and op-ed articles, Pollack himself still supports the war, saying that now is better than never. But it's fair to say that his book does not—or at least not Bush's path to it.<ref>[http://www.slate.com/id/2079705/], Chris Suellentrop, "Kenneth Pollack's The Threatening Storm: Does the 'invade Iraq book say what you think it does?'," Slate, 5 March 2003</ref></blockquote>

Pollack responded to the Suellentrop article by saying that he was unhappy that many people seemed to have read only the subtitle of his book, which had not been his choice.  He also said:

<blockquote>given how far down the road the Bush Administration has taken us, I think that we have no realistic choice but to go to war this year. And yet I think the Administration has handled the diplomacy and public diplomacy of coalition building very poorly, and I am deeply concerned about the impact this will have both on postwar reconstruction and on our ability to garner allies for the inevitable next crisis.<ref>[http://www.slate.com/id/2079611/], J.D. Conner, "Unsubtle Subtitle: Kenneth Pollack on The Case for Invading Iraq," ''Slate'', 9 March 2003</ref></blockquote>

Pollack later was a strong supporter of the [[Iraq War troop surge of 2007]] advocated by General [[David Petraeus]], which entailed a buildup of US ground forces to improve the security of the Iraqi population and help Iraq increase its governmental capacity, develop employment programs, and improve daily life for its citizens.  He laid out some of his arguments in support of the surge in the June 2007 ''NY Times'' article "A War We Just Might Win," which was co-authored with [[Michael E. O'Hanlon]] of Brookings.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/opinion/30pollack.html], Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack, "A War We Just Might Win," 30 July 2007</ref>

==Other publications==

In 2004, his third book, ''The Persian Puzzle'', was published. In contrast to his views on Iraq, in ''The Persian Puzzle'' he argued that though the threat of force is necessary in dealing with [[Iran]], [[diplomacy]] rather than [[regime change]] by force is the best way of dealing with Iran because Iran's policy-makers are divided between pragmatists who are motivated by a desire to improve the [[economy]] and hardliners who fear U.S. attack and so seek a nuclear deterrent. The United States can thus exploit this divide to negotiate a favorable agreement. He also argued that the hardliners’ leader, Supreme Leader [[Ali Khamenei]], was, unlike Saddam Hussein, rational and risk-averse and so, even if Iran did acquire a [[Nuclear program of Iran|nuclear capability]], Iran could be deterred in a way that Saddam Hussein could not be.

In 2007, Pollack co-authored the book ''Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil War'' with Daniel L. Byman. This book analyzed 12 recent civil wars to derive six common ways in which fullscale ethnic civil wars "spillover" to affect neighboring states. Pollack and Byman argued that while spillover can range from modest effects to very severe problems (like causing other civil wars or triggering regional wars among neighboring states), the early evidence so far suggested that the United States should be prepared for Iraq's potential descent into all-out civil war to be on the worse end of the spectrum. The book went on to lay out thirteen different ways that the United States and its allies might fashion a "containment" strategy for Iraq, which offered some chance of preventing all-out civil war in Iraq from destabilizing the wider [[Persian Gulf]] region in the event that American efforts to stabilize the country failed. While Pollack and Byman argued that such a containment strategy would be very difficult to make work given the historical problems of doing so and the specific problems created by previous American actions in Iraq, they also concluded that containment would likely prove America's least bad option because U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf were so important that Washington would have to try to mitigate the impact of spillover.

He has written numerous articles for publications such as the ''[[Atlantic Monthly]]'' and ''[[Foreign Affairs]]''. He has also repeatedly testified before the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]].

Pollack's fifth book, ''A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East'', was published in July 2008. In a review in ''Army Magazine'', former commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq LTG James M. Dubik, US Army Retired, described the book as providing a clear description of America's vital interests in the Middle East and presenting well-documented, cogent arguments on the threats posed by the regional anger and frustration bred by crippling societal problems. Pollack recommends a grand strategy for the United States and its allies in which they

<blockquote>encourage and enable the countries of the Middle East to pursue a gradual process of political, economic and social reform—one that grows from within, rather than being imposed from without; one that reflects the values, traditions, history and aspirations of the people of the region themselves, not a Western guess at them; one that recognizes that reform and stability are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing—and ultimately mutually essential.<ref>[http://www.ausa.org/publications/armymagazine/armyarchive/12_08/Pages/ThrowingOutaChallengeANewStrategyfortheMiddleEast.aspx]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, LTG James M. Dubik, "Throwing Out a Challenge: A New Strategy for the Middle East," Army, December 2008</ref></blockquote>

==Allegation of espionage==

A [[U.S. government]] [[indictment]] alleged that Pollack provided information to former [[American Israel Public Affairs Committee]] (AIPAC) employees [[Steve J. Rosen]] and [[Keith Weissman]] during the [[AIPAC espionage scandal]].<ref>[http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1139395590059&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Bush officials subpoenaed in AIPAC trial], N Guttman, [[Jerusalem Post]], 13 March 2006, retrieved July 2007</ref> In April 2009, the indictment was dropped.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR2009050101310.html?hpid=topnews | title=U.S. Drops Case Against Ex-Lobbyists | newspaper=Washington Post | date=May 2, 2009 | access-date=April 25, 2019 | author=Markon, Jerry | author-link = Jerry Markon}}</ref>

==Books==
* ''Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991'', University of Nebraska Press, 2002, {{ISBN|0-8032-3733-2}}
* ''Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq'', Random House, 2002, {{ISBN|0-375-50928-3}}
* ''The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America'', Random House, 2004, {{ISBN|1-4000-6315-9}}
* ''Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil War'', with [[Daniel L. Byman]], Brookings Institution Press, 2007, {{ISBN|0-8157-1379-7}}
* ''A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East'', Random House, 2008, {{ISBN|1-4000-6548-8}}
* ''Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb, and American Strategy'', Simon & Schuster, 2013, {{ISBN|1-4767-3392-9}}
* ''Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness'', Oxford University Press, 2018, {{ISBN|0-1909-0696-0}}<ref name="ZackheimReview">{{cite news |last1=Zackheim |first1=Dov | author-link = Dov S. Zakheim|title=Kenneth Pollack's New History of Arab Armies |url=https://nationalinterest.org/feature/kenneth-pollack%E2%80%99s-new-history-arab-armies-44092 |access-date=3 April 2019 |magazine=[[The National Interest]] |date=10 February 2019}}</ref>

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.brookings.edu/experts/pollackk Biography from the Brookings Institution]
* {{IMDb name|1821339}}
* {{C-SPAN}}

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[[Category:1966 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:20th-century American Jews]]
[[Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni]]
[[Category:Place of birth missing (living people)]]
[[Category:People of the Central Intelligence Agency]]
[[Category:Yale University alumni]]
[[Category:Brookings Institution people]]