Dr. Michael Pillsbury is a Senior Advisor at American Global Strategies and one of the nation’s leading experts on China strategy, defense policy, and U.S.-China competition.
Dr. Pillsbury has served in senior national security and defense policy roles across multiple administrations. During the Reagan administration, he served as Assistant Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning, where he was responsible for implementation of the covert aid program known as the Reagan Doctrine. Under President George H. W. Bush, he served as Special Assistant for Asian Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, reporting to Andrew W. Marshall, Director of Net Assessment.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Pillsbury has advised the Department of Defense, served as Senior Research Advisor to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and held research roles at RAND, Harvard University, and the National Defense University. He also served on the staff of four U.S. Senate Committees, where he worked on legislation establishing the U.S. Institute of Peace, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the annual Department of Defense report to Congress on Chinese military power.
A longtime China scholar and strategist, Dr. Pillsbury has written extensively on Chinese military power, future warfare, and Beijing’s long-term strategic ambitions. His work has informed congressional and defense community assessments of China’s military modernization and strategic objectives. He is the author of The Hundred-Year Marathon, a national bestseller examining China’s strategy to displace the United States as the world’s leading power.
Dr. Pillsbury is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He received his B.A. in History with honors in Social Thought from Stanford University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University.