Gareth Porter

Gareth Porter is a visiting scholar at the George Mason University’s  School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution for the 2010-2011 academic year, while working on a book on the U.S.-Iran conflict over Iran’s nuclear program.

Dr. Porter is an independent investigative journalist and historian specializing in U.S. national security policy.  He has written regularly for Inter Press Service since early 2005 on U.S. policy toward Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and his articles have been republished on a number of websites, including Asia Times, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Antwar.com and Truthout. 

He has also published investigative articles on Salon.com, The Nation, The American Prospect and The Raw Story.  His opinion pieces have been published on Huffington Post, Firedoglake, and other websites.
Dr. Porter was Saigon bureau chief of Dispatch New Service International in 1971 and later reported on trips to Southeast Asia for The Guardian, Asian Wall Street Journal and Pacific News Service.   He also undertook research for his PhD dissertation in Saigon during that year.  He received his PhD in Southeast Asian studies and international politics from Cornell University.  From 1974 through 1976, he was Co-Director of the Indochina Resource Center, an anti-war educational and lobbying organization.

He is the author of four books on the Vietnam War and the political system of Vietnam.  Historian Andrew Bacevich called his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War, published by University of California Press in 2005, "without a doubt, the most important contribution to the history of U.S. national security policy to appear in the past decade."

Dr. Porter has taught at American University, City College of New York and the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.