Thomas Blau

Published by Thomas

• Explosively re-framing current events

  September 23, 2015

Summary

Experience

• Executive Director

  Paratos LLC

  March 2013 – Present (3 years 2 months)

  National and homeland security consulting and education. e.g. 13-year relationship with U.S. Government Accountability Office; ongoing with Johns Hopkins Center for Advanced Governmental Studies.

• Professor, Dept Head, Assistant to VP

  NDU College of International Security Affairs

  May 2001 – March 2013 (11 years 11 months)

  May 2001-March 2013: Professor, National Defense University (NDU), international security: Developed, taught courses on Intelligence, Decision-Making, Homeland Security/Defense, Design Thinking, Foreign Policy, Methods of Analysis.
  
  May 2011-March 2013, also Special Assistant to Vice President/Academic Affairs. Drafted University self-study for re-accreditation, organizing faculty assembly; managing teams, document editing, drafting; drafting study of potential PhD program. Teaching course in Design Thinking; writing on surprise in politics; creating project on veterans' health care.
  
  2008-2010), also Head, Department of National Security Policy & Process, College of International Security Affairs: manage, teach, create programs for other agencies (Defense, State, DHS): counter-terrorism academic program for international officers; homeland security and defense for DHS and international officers.
  
  2003-1998, Adjunct faculty, George Mason, Johns Hopkins Universities: national security, strategic management.
  
  External presentations: National security policy (Argentina, 4/03); strategic education (Chile, 10/03); organized, led week-long biodefense workshop for Polish security and medical officials (Warsaw, 4/05); spoke on human rights and war on terror (Beijing, 12/05); on risk management in Critical Incident Response and Emergency Management (Washington, DC, 3/06); on surprise in foreign policy (Salt Lake City, 3/06); keynote speaker and working group leader, conference on transatlantic militaries in homeland defense (Garmisch, 5/06); on net assessment in DHS before senior advisory group, 11/07; on strategy in Afghanistan, before the Cornwallis Group XV (3/10) and Patuxent Defense Forum (4/10); “Nation-Building And Patronage: Building Resilient Nations During Phase IV Stabilization Operations,” futures analysis for Colombian security (Bogota, 2010); education for reconstruction and stabilization –UK Defence Academy (7/10).

• Consultant in aerospace business, gov't relations to US, UK, Japanese, French entities

  Envoy Group, and others

  March 1988 – June 2001 (13 years 4 months)Washington D.C. Metro Area

  Developed cross-border high technology and aerospace joint ventures; e.g.
  • Led critical review of costing and collaboration on the F-22, for the USAF;
  • advised British aerospace consortium on teaming on the F-35;
  • for Japanese companies (Toshiba, Nissan Aerospace, IHI, Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Corp., Itochu, Fuji Heavy and Nissho Iwai), surveyed industry, developed strategy, helped develop markets such as air traffic control, missile defense, military simulation, propulsion;
  • led winning “national security” trade case for Japan Bearings Industry Association (1988);
  • recruited, organized, led US-Japanese technical team; drafted, 100-page technical Statement of Work, to 1st place $2+ million US Government contract to develop superconducting cable technology, for Sumitomo Electric Industries and Sumitomo Corp. (1991);
  • Consulted with Defense Department on missile defense strategy and policy (1986-92).
  • Represented SEP of France (now in SNECMA) for US teams developing PAC-3 and Navy Theater Wide missile defense, and in collaborative R&D in US (1995-97).
  • Developed for Standard & Poor’s DRI a model of operating & maintenance costs of foreign jet fighters, air defense missiles and non-nuclear submarines. (1998)
  • Developed proprietary model of foreign markets for Lockheed Martin C-130J. (2000)
  • For a U.S. aerospace company, led study of international strategies of foreign competitors.

• Consultant

  Hudson Institute

  March 1985 – November 1988 (3 years 9 months)

  To Department of Defense: Director of the Strategy Panel, Pilot Architecture Study of Strategic Defense (1985); Consultant on strategy for Chief Scientist, Strategic Defense Initiative Organization; Personal consultant to the late U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop (R, WY), on international security affairs; USIA lecture tour of Europe on US strategic policy (1987).

• Professional Staff

  U.S. Senate

  September 1983 – March 1985 (1 year 7 months)

  On international security affairs, for the late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, NY).

• Consultant

  RDA/Cooper Associates

  January 1980 – August 1983 (3 years 8 months)Washington D.C. Metro Area

  To DoD, on export control and technology transfer; energy security; theater nuclear forces and arms control; policy and managerial issues of safety, security & survivability of nuclear weapons; Nuclear proliferation; military aspects of space.

• Professional Staff

  U.S. Department of Energy

  August 1975 – January 1980 (4 years 6 months)

  Last position: division director, International Security Policy. Critically reviewed nuclear exports (e.g. Iran); arms control negotiations, oil and gas security.

• Assistant Professor

  University of Colorado Boulder

  September 1971 – August 1975 (4 years)

  Department of Political Science: Taught public policy, defense policy, interdisciplinary social science.

Volunteer Experience & Causes

• Supporter

  Sergeant Thomas Sullivan Center

  October 2012 – Present (3 years 7 months)Health

  The Sullivan Center promotes post-deployment veterans' health through awareness, research, and connection.

• Member; formerly on Board

  Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance

  January 2012 – Present (4 years 4 months)Economic Empowerment

  FCTA promotes the interest of citizens in restraining local government spending.

Publications

• Connolly’s Narrative vs. Reality

  Fairfax Free Citizen

  October 2014

  Critique of politician's attempt to suppress analysis about government problems.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• An Insecure Smart Grid Not So Smart

  Defense News

  October 2013

  Op-ed, on the vulnerability of advanced technology in the electric grid, to natural, accidental and intentional disaster.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• Working With a Local Patronage System in Stability and COIN Operations

  Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin

  January 2012

  A discussion of conditions under which the U.S. military in a "less-than-permissive" environment might work with and through the local patronage system, as opposed to relying on formal standards more appropriate to a pacified situation. pp. 32-39.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau,
  • Datyl Liskey Ph.D.

• The Public Diplomacy Void

  National Security Policy Proceedings, vol. 5: Spring 2011

  April 2011

  Book review, on public diplomacy.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• Analytics and Action in Afghanistan

  PRISM, vol. 1, no. 4

  January 2010

  The first of two articles critically reviewing the role in US strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan of efforts to "modernize" the local polity, economy, and society, and their roots in social science theory.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau,
  • Daryl Liskey PhD

• The World at Work

  Claremont Review of Books

  April 2005

  A review of three major books on globalization, each by a great economist. The Nobelist among the three serves up the weakest fare -- a full plate of sitting ducks, which I find to have political agendas behind them.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• Missile Defense Systems

  Carl Mitcham (ed.), Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics. Vol. 3. Macmillan Reference USA, Detroit. pp. 1215-1218.

  January 2005

  Brief overview of ethical issues in missile defense.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• World Military Aircraft Upgrades

  Aviation Week & Space Technology (2000), pp. 271-82.

  January 2000

  Annual business review.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• Consolidation Quickens Throughout MRO Industry

  Aviation Week & Space Technology (2000), pp. 63-64.

  January 2000

  A business review of the aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul sector for the year.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• Make Trade, Not War

  Journal of Commerce (1998)

  February 1998

  Op-ed criticizing claims of opponents of free trade.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• Pre-Marketing Through Development Consortia: The Case of ESSM

  Naval Forces 16, 4

  1995

  Study of companies' developing consortia in advance of contracts, for the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau,
  • Richard Aboulafia

• Asia Reaches for the Sky with the Wrong Stuff

  Asian Wall Street Journal (1995)

  June 1995

  Critical of Asian government-directed investment to build aviation industry, as driven by political ad bureaucratic ego, at the cost of the Asian taxpayer. Reprinted in Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly as “Asia's Expensive Pie in the Sky,"* June 24, 1995.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau,
  • Richard Aboulafia

• TMD in The Clinton Era

  Military Technology [journal], pp. 16-23.

  July 1993

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• War & Technology in the Age of the Electron (1993)

  Defense & Security Review (London), pp. 94-100.

  1993

  A very early assessment of the impact of advanced technology and what we now call "globalization" on international security.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• SDI and Space Basing

  NATO's Sixteen Nations, pp. 38-43.

  April 1986

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• European dependence and Soviet leverage : the Yamal pipeline

  Survival (IISS, September/October 1981), pp. 209-214.

  September 1981

  A very early cautionary view of the influence in the West that Moscow would acquire as a result of Western dependence on Russian gas. Regrettably prescient.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau,
  • Joseph Kirchheimer

• Getting Directed Energy & Strategic Defense in Focus

  Military Technology, pp. 42-49.

  September 1985

  Potential role of directed energy weapons in strategic defenses.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• Small Nuclear Forces in South Asia

  Rodney W. Jones (ed.), Small Nuclear Forces and U.S. Security Policy (Lexington Books), 89-107.

  1984

  Exploration of potential impacts of South Asian nuclear forces on U.S. interests and local stability, beyond the formalities of the formal and negotiated nonproliferation regime.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

• A Preface to Space Defense

  Comparative Strategy (3, 2), pp. 135-149.

  January 1981

  This article explored increasing Soviet power and its impact on U.S. access to space. Written a while ago (not long after the War of 1812), this piece still holds up pretty well. The basic issue is whether the U.S., seeing the rise of Soviet strategic power, can then deploy defenses in response.

  Authors:

  • Thomas Blau

Languages

• Spanish

  Limited working proficiency

• French

  Limited working proficiency

Education

• University of Chicago

  PhD, MA

  1965 – 1971

• New York University

  B.A.

  1961 – 1965