Bruce Hoffman

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Bruce Hoffman

Bruce Hoffmann is a prominent terrorism expert for a long time associated with the RAND Corporation. He was a founding director of the the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews, and is currently a professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Education

  • A.B. (1976) Connecticut College, Government, History
  • B. Phil. (1978) Oxford University, International Relations
  • D. Phil. (1986) Oxford University, International Relations

Career

RAND Corporation

Hoffman must have joined RAND prior to completing his higher education because he authored a report for RAND called Right-wing terrorism in Europe in 1982, four years before he was awarded his doctorate. Hoffman authored several reports for RAND during the late 1980s, and when Brian Jenkins left in 1989, Hoffman took over the RAND Terrorism Chronology Database which Jenkins had developed. Hoffman assumed directorship of the programme and expanded the database to include domestic as well as international terrorism.[1]

St. Andrews

In November 1994, the Director of Central Intelligence awarded Hoffman the United States Intelligence Community Seal Medallion; the highest level of commendation given to a non-government employee.[2] That year Hoffman left the RAND staff to set up the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews. Hoffman became director of the centre as well as becoming chairman of the Department of International Relations at St. Andrews. Hoffman worked alongside Paul Wilkinson who was Chairman of the Centre, and assumed Hoffman’s responsibilities after his departure. At St. Andrews Hoffman continued to consult for RAND and others, and to edit the academic journal Studies in Conflict and Terrorism.[3]

Back to RAND

On 31 August 1998 RAND announced that Hoffman was to become director of its Washington Office, effective from January 1999.[4] From 2001 to 2004, Hoffman was RAND’s Vice President for External Affairs and in 2004 he also was Acting Director of RAND’s Center for Middle East Public Policy. Hoffman’s last positions at RAND were as Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency, Director of the Washington office and Senior International Policy Analyst.[5]

Advising the Occupation in Iraq

Hoffman was adviser on counterterrorism to the Office of National Security Affairs, Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq during the spring of 2004. From 2004-2005 he was an adviser on counterinsurgency to the Strategy, Plans, and Analysis Office at Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad.[6] Hoffman argued that the occupation strategy can be successful only if it adopts a British colonial model of counter-insurgency, comparable to perspectives in Frank Kitson's Low Intensity Operations. Hoffman had compared American Imperialism with its British predecessor in his early writings. In 1983 Bar-Ilan University Press published Hoffman’s book The failure of British military strategy within Palestine, 1939-1947. A year later he compared the British colonial experience with the American presence in Lebanon in a RAND report he authored called The siege mentality in Beirut: an historical analogy between the British in Palestine and the Americans in Lebanon.

Georgetown University

On 12 July 2006 it was announced that Hoffman would join Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service[7] where he is currently professor in the Security Studies Program. Note that the SFS program at Georgetown Univ. is a prime recruiting ground for CIA and other intelligence operatives. The CIA recruits openly, and some students wear CIA t-shirts. At least two SFS deans were "former" CIA officers (e.g., Dean Keogh).[8]

Views on terrorism

Hoffman is dismissive of the possibility of grass roots militarism against the United States and its allies. Commenting on a Canadian report predicting a 'lone wolf' terrorism attack, Hoffman told the National Post: "I think part of al-Qaeda's strategy, the jihadi strategy, is to get everyone so consumed with these grass-roots threats that it gives greater scope to the real professionals to operate."[9]

Dispute with Marc Sageman

Hoffman has publicly disagreed with former CIA analyst and Foreign Policy Research Institute Senior Fellow Marc Sageman over the nature of the terrorist threat to the United States. Sageman has argued that the threat comes not from Al-Qaeda but from independent and self-organised individuals and groups. Hoffman on the other hand has emphasised a continued and resurgent threat from Al-Qaeda.[10]

Reviewing Sageman's book for Foreign Affairs, Hoffman wrote that Sageman has “a fundamental misreading of the Al Qaeda threat,” adding that his “historical ignorance is surpassed only by his cursory treatment of social-networking theory.”[11]

In a subsequent issue of Foreign Affairs, Sageman accused Hoffman of “gross misrepresentation” and in an interview with the New York Times, he said he was at a loss to explain Hoffman’s critique saying: “Maybe he’s mad that I’m the go-to guy now.”[12]

Affiliations

Contact information

Tel: 202-687-7847
Email: brh6@georgetown.edu

Notes

  1. RAND Corporation News Release, 'BRUCE HOFFMAN TO HEAD RAND’S WASHINGTON OFFICE. LEADING TERRORISM EXPERT RETURNS AS THINK TANK BEEFS UP PROGRAM. ALSO BACK AT RAND: BRIAN JENKINS', 31 August 1998
  2. Georgetown University Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, FACULTY & STAFF: Bruce Hoffman
  3. RAND Corporation News Release, 'BRUCE HOFFMAN TO HEAD RAND’S WASHINGTON OFFICE. LEADING TERRORISM EXPERT RETURNS AS THINK TANK BEEFS UP PROGRAM. ALSO BACK AT RAND: BRIAN JENKINS', 31 August 1998
  4. RAND Corporation News Release, 'BRUCE HOFFMAN TO HEAD RAND’S WASHINGTON OFFICE. LEADING TERRORISM EXPERT RETURNS AS THINK TANK BEEFS UP PROGRAM. ALSO BACK AT RAND: BRIAN JENKINS', 31 August 1998
  5. Georgetown University New, ‘Terrorism Expert Bruce Hoffman Joins Faculty’, 12 July 2006
  6. Georgetown University Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, FACULTY & STAFF: Bruce Hoffman
  7. Georgetown University New, ‘Terrorism Expert Bruce Hoffman Joins Faculty’, 12 July 2006
  8. This is well known to students and faculty at GU. During the 1970s, especially during the Carter presidency, the right-wing intelligence opertatives moved to the CSIS, a GU-related think tank. During the Reagan presidency the CSIS opertives moved back into their government posts, and now they return to CSIS or GU-SFS when they are in-between jobs. While during the 1970s they remained mostly at the CSIS producing reports and the like, the new batch of CSIS foreign policy hawks teach at the SFS.
  9. Stewart Bell, 'Solo terrorists pose new threat: report', National Post, 10 June 2008
  10. Elaine Sciolino and Eric Schmitt, A Not Very Private Feud Over Terrorism, New York Times, 8 June 2008
  11. Bruce Hoffman, 'The Myth of Grass-Roots Terrorism. Why Osama bin Laden Still Matters', Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008
  12. Elaine Sciolino and Eric Schmitt, A Not Very Private Feud Over Terrorism, New York Times, 8 June 2008