For two decades, Professor John Gordon IV has brought to Georgetown’s Security Studies Program (SSP) a rare combination of operational experience and rigorous analytical scholarship. A U.S. Army veteran with 20 years of service before he joined the RAND Corporation in 1997, Gordon has grounded every seminar in the hard realities of military operations, counterinsurgency doctrine and national defense policy.
At RAND, where he serves as a senior defense researcher, Gordon has led and contributed to major studies for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Departments of the Army and Navy. His research portfolio spans counterinsurgency doctrine, multinational interoperability, Army fires capabilities and Indo-Pacific strategy—work that has shaped policy for the governments of the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy and Germany. His book, Fighting for MacArthur: The Navy and Marine Corps’ Desperate Defense of the Philippines, reflects the same rigorous, practitioner-grounded lens he brings to every course he teaches—and was recognized with the 2011 Best New Work in Military History award from the New York Military Affairs Symposium.
His teaching also extended well beyond the classroom. Over the years, Gordon led numerous battlefield tours to Gettysburg and organized “ship trips” to visit the U.S. Navy vessels at Norfolk Naval Station—immersive experiences that brought the hard realities of military operations to life for students in a way no classroom could replicate. By all accounts, they were as educational as they were fun and memorable. That same commitment is precisely what SSP students have carried with them beyond Georgetown. In a program designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice in national security, Gordon has embodied that connection semester after semester.
When reflecting on his time at SSP, Gordon pointed to two things above all else: “helping students’ knowledge grow over time, particularly in this field of national security and military operations, and mentoring and helping students with their long-term academic and career goals.” That mentorship was also tangible, as he helped several former students secure positions at RAND and elsewhere in the national security community.
This is Gordon’s final semester at SSP, closing a remarkable chapter after 20 years of service to the program and its students. Gordon has cultivated an entire generation of analysts and sharp thinkers who have left the Hilltop with a clearer understanding of the hard realities of war and of the challenges of national security. Hoya Saxa, Professor Gordon. We are grateful!