Expertise: Constitutional law, international strategy, history of strategy

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Senior Fellow

One of the nation's leading constitutional theorists, Professor Bobbitt's interests include not only constitutional law but also international security and the history of strategy. He has published six books: Tragic Choices (with Calabresi) (1978), Constitutional Fate (1982), Democracy and Deterrence (1987), U.S. Nuclear Strategy (with Freedman and Treverton) (1989), Constitutional Interpretation (1991), and most recently The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History (Knopf, 2002).

Bobbitt is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a Fellow of the Club of Madrid. He is a Life Member of the American Law Institute, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. He is a member of the Commission on the Continuity of Government. He has served as Law Clerk to the Hon. Henry J. Friendly (2 Cir.), Associate Counsel to the President, the Counselor on International Law at the State Department, Legal Counsel to the Senate Iran-Contra Committee, and Director for Intelligence, Senior Director for Critical Infrastructure and Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council. He is a former trustee of Princeton University; and a former member of the Oxford University Modern History Faculty and the War Studies Department of Kings College, London. He serves on the Editorial Board of Biosecurity and Bioterrorism. For the Fall term 2005, he was the James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. For the Spring term 2007, he was the Samuel Rubin Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, after which he accepted a Chair at Columbia, where he is now a member of the Law faculty.

 

Selected Research:

• Terror and Consent, New York: Knopf, 2008
• The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History, New York: Knopf, 2002

Selected Commentary:

• "Russia's aggression in Georgia is a portent of perils to come," The Spectator, Aug 2008
• "Philip Bobbitt: The presidents' brain," The Independent, Jul 2008
• "Key US adviser Philip Bobbitt: 'We must rewrite war on terror'," Times Online, May 2008
• "War Plans," The New York Times Sunday Book Review, Apr 2008
• "President Bush, Lawmakers Clash Over Renewal of Surveillance Program,"  Online NewsHour, Mar 2008
• "Why We Listen," New York Times, Jan 30, 2006