Mira Rapp-Hooper

Dr. Mira Rapp-Hooper is a political scientist and expert on security in the Asia-Pacific region. Her field of expertise includes Asia security issues, deterrence, nuclear strategy and policy, and alliance politics. She is currently a senior fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.

She holds a B.A. in history from Stanford University and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. Previously she worked at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) as a senior fellow in the Asia-Pacific Security Program, and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as a fellow and as director of CSIS’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

She has published in Political Science Quarterly, Security Studies, and Survival (academic); the National Interest, Foreign Affairs, and The Washington Quarterly (press). She is a regular journalistic source on Asia issues and has provided expert analysis to the New York Times, The Washington Post, and NPR and the BBC. Her forthcoming book Shields of the Republic: The Triumph and Peril of America’s Alliances (Harvard University Press, 2020) analyzes the history of and the current challenges to the United States' system of alliances. Her second book, An Open World: How America Can Win the Contest for Twenty-First-Century Order, co-authored with Rebecca Lissner, is forthcoming with Yale University Press.

Dr. Rapp-Hooper was also Asia Policy Coordinator for the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign. She was a Foreign Policy Interrupted Fellow, and is a David Rockefeller Fellow of the Trilateral Commission and an Associate Editor with the International Security Studies Forum.