Alexander Bick

About

Alexander Bick is Associate Professor of Practice in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, a Senior Faculty Fellow at the Miller Center, and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His work focuses on international security, strategic planning, and the history of European statecraft.  
 
Bick has held senior roles in the U.S. government, non-profit organizations, and academic institutions. As Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council in the Biden administration, he led the “Tiger Team” that planned the U.S. government’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and contributed to the 2022 National Security Strategy of the United States. He also served on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning staff, where he co-led an initiative to enhance the Department’s ability to anticipate and prepare for major global crises. In the Obama administration, he served as Director for Syria, where he coordinated assistance to the Syrian opposition and helped develop the U.S. strategy to defeat the Islamic State. Earlier in his career, he supported former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s peace and democratization efforts around the world, including leading the Carter Center’s international election observation mission to Libya in 2012.  
 
Bick has taught at Barnard College and Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies and held research fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Folger Shakespeare Library, and University of Leiden, where he was a Fulbright Fellow. He is the author of Minutes of Empire: Dutch West India Company Politics, 1618-1648. Bick received his PhD in history from Princeton University and is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.