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Francis J. Gavin

Director of and Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS

Francis J. Gavin is the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and the director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS.

Previously, he was the first Frank Stanton Chair in Nuclear Security Policy Studies at MIT and the Tom Slick Professor of International Affairs and the Director of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas. From 2005 until 2010, he directed The American Assembly’s multiyear, national initiative, The Next Generation Project: U.S. Global Policy and the Future of International Institutions. He is the founding Chair of the Board of Editors for the Texas National Security Journal.

Gavin’s writings include Gold, Dollars, and Power: The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958-1971; Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age ; and Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy (Brookings Institution Press), which was named a 2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title.

His IISS-Adelphi book, The Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Plenty: Rethinking International Relations and American Grand Strategy in a New Era in 2024. Thinking Historically – A Guide to Statecraft and Strategy, will be published by Yale University Press, 2025.

Content by Francis J. Gavin

Commentary

Ok, Doomer! The NEVER podcast – How to save the world

Listen to the final episode of the NEVER podcast – Ok, Doomer! This episode takes a step back to assess what we’ve learned about existential and global catastrophic risks in previous episodes, and what comes next. Featuring a discussion of how ordinary people can get involved in existential risk mitigation, what ongoing efforts will prove most successful in creating a framework to deal on these topics, and how the example of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty demonstrates that global cooperation to deal with the biggest threats we all face is possible, even in a tense geopolitical climate.