Andrew S. Erickson

Dr. Andrew S. Erickson is Professor of Strategy (tenured full professor) in the U.S. Naval War College (NWC)’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI). A core founding member, he helped establish CMSI and stand it up officially in 2006, and has played an integral role in its development; from 2021–23 he served as Research Director. CMSI inspired the creation of other analytical organizations, which Erickson has advised and supported, including China centers for all other Department of Defense (DoD) military services; he is a China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) Associate. Erickson is currently a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, where he has been an Associate in Research since 2008. He serves on the editorial boards of Naval War College Review and Asia Policy, is a Contributing Editor at 19FortyFive, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 2024 Erickson was awarded the Navy Superior Civilian Service Medal. In 2017 he received NWC’s inaugural Civilian Faculty Research Excellence Award. In 2012 the National Bureau of Asian Research awarded Erickson the inaugural Ellis Joffe Prize for PLA Studies; he subsequently served on the selection committee. His publications have won various awards, including the NWC Foundation’s Hugh G. Nott Prize (first & second place), the U.S. Naval Institute General Prize Essay Contest (third prize), and repeated recognition by the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) and War on the Rocks. Erickson’s latest coedited volume, Chinese Amphibious Warfare: Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion—among NWC’s most popular publications with over 10,700 downloads and counting—has been named the Samuel B. Griffith Foundation’s 2025 Publication of the Year and selected for the Commandant of the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program’s 2025 Reading List.

Erickson has taught courses at NWC and Yonsei University. He provides flag officer tailored education for NWC, both on and off campus; including in Honolulu, Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Naples. He advises and evaluates a wide range of student research, theses, and professional development at NWC, Harvard, and other institutions. Erickson contributes curricular instruction, inputs, and advice to NWC, across the Naval University System, and beyond; particularly in support of SECDEF’s guidance for professional military education regarding China. In 2013, while deployed in the Pacific as a Naval Postgraduate School Regional Security Education Program scholar aboard flagship aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, Erickson delivered twenty-five hours of lectures. He has also accompanied an allied military air patrol in East Asia. Erickson is coauthor of the Oxford Bibliography (Oxford University Press) on “The People’s Liberation Army (PLA).” He provides a periodically-revised Foreword, and reviews and furnishes inputs, for a quarterly-updated reference—the most comprehensive unclassified compilation of China’s military maritime order of battle.

Erickson advises government, academic, and non-profit organizations, including as a member of the Institute of Maritime Policy & Strategy’s International Advisory Committee and the Japan-America Society of Southern New England (JASNE) and Japan-America Navy Friendship Association (JANAFA)-Newport’s Board of Directors. For two decades, Erickson has supported NWC’s scholarly research relationship with Japanese counterparts. In 2014 he helped to escort the Commander of China’s Navy and his delegation on a visit to Harvard. He subsequently helped to establish, escort the first iteration of, and further assist NWC’s first bilateral naval officer exchange program and field studies class in China. Erickson was a scholar escort on a five-member congressional trip to China in 2011. He participates in a range of Track 1, 1.5, and 2 discussions, including as a delegate at the Shangri-La Dialogue; and has joined delegations sponsored by Japan and Taiwan’s ministries of foreign affairs.

From 2022–24 Erickson was a Visiting Professor in Harvard’s Department of Government, within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. During 2019–22 he was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard’s Fairbank Center. From 2012–17 Erickson was an expert contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report (中国实时报), for which he authored/coauthored thirty-eight articles. Erickson was the 2010–11 Princeton (Columbia)-Harvard China and the World Program Fellow in residence at Harvard’s Center for Government and International Studies. From 2008–11 he was a Fellow in the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program. In 2005–06, he was a Research Fellow sponsored by the late longtime director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, Andrew Marshall.

Erickson presents at academic, private sector, and government institutions throughout the United States and Asia. He has broadened his knowledge by attending four Zhuhai Airshows, presenting papers in International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) History Symposia at seven International Astronautical Congresses, editing quarterly hedge fund newsletters for more than a decade, and speaking at international fora including the Aspen Ideas Festival. Erickson has briefed a broad array of senior U.S. and foreign policy-makers and principals. Within the U.S. Navy: the CNO and Executive Panel, the Secretary of the Navy, and leaders throughout the Indo-Pacific. Elsewhere in government: Deputy Assistants to the President, the National Security Council’s Deputy National Security Advisor, Senior Director for Asia, China/Taiwan Directors, Chief of Staff, and other White House officials; Ambassador to China and other Executive Branch officials; SECDEF; Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; Air Force Chief of Staff; Marine Corps and Coast Guard Commandants; other agency heads; and many Members of Congress. Internationally: numerous high-level officials, including future and former heads of state, former Defense Ministers, and heads of multiple foreign navies and other government organizations. Additionally: the National Academies’ Naval Studies Board.

Erickson testifies before such congressional bodies as the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees and U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He has provided inputs for, and reviews of, multifarious government programs, wargames/simulations, and reports; including in support of the National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends study and DoD’s Annual Report to Congress on China’s Military Power. Erickson’s research, presentations, and recommendations are consumed widely by key principals and have influenced specific aspects of U.S. and allied government military doctrine as well as civilian, military, and interagency assessments, policy, messaging guidance, statements, and actions.

Erickson received his Ph.D. and M.A. in politics from Princeton University (concentrations: China/comparative politics, international relations) and graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College (majors: history, political science; international relations certificate). He took many courses at The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA); studied Mandarin in the Princeton in Beijing program at Beijing Normal University’s College of Chinese Language and Culture; and studied Japanese language, politics, and economics in the year-long Associated Kyoto Program at Doshisha University. Erickson previously worked for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) as a Chinese translator and technical analyst. Proficient in Mandarin Chinese and conversant in Japanese, he has lived and performed academic work in China, Japan, and Korea.

Erickson is the author of the book Chinese Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Development (Jamestown Foundation/Brookings Institution Press, 2013). He is coauthor of two other books: Gulf of Aden Anti-Piracy and China’s Maritime Commons Presence (Jamestown/Brookings, 2015) and Assessing China’s Cruise Missile Ambitions (National Defense University Press, 2014). He has coauthored four additional volumes: Charting China’s International Security Activism (Center for a New American Security, 2015), the CMSI monographs Chinese Antipiracy Operations in the Gulf of Aden (2013) and Chinese Mine Warfare (2009), and the CASI monograph The PLAAF’s Campaign for a Bigger Maritime Role (2019). Erickson is the editor of, and a contributor to, three volumes: Maritime Gray Zone Operations (Routledge Cass Series: Naval Policy & History, 2022/paperback 2024), Chinese Naval Shipbuilding (Naval Institute Press/NIP, 2016/paperback 2023), and Proceedings of the 47th History Symposium of the IAA (Univelt, 2015). He is coeditor of, and a contributor to, thirteen volumes. This includes nine (in addition to Chinese Naval Shipbuilding) of the ten “Studies in Chinese Maritime Development” books to date, for which he is the series editor; comprising the NIP volumes China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations (2019/Japanese translation 2020/paperback 2023/Taiwan Defense Ministry translation 2023), Chinese Aerospace Power (2011), China, the U.S., and 21st Century Sea Power (2010/China Ocean Press translation 2014), China Goes to Sea (2009/China Ocean Press translation 2015/paperback 2021), China’s Energy Strategy (2008/China Ocean Press translation 2015), and China’s Future Nuclear Submarine Force (2007/China Ocean Press translation 2015); as well as the NWC Press books Chinese Amphibious Warfare (2024), Chinese Undersea Warfare: Narrowing the Gaps (forthcoming 2025), and The People of China’s Navy and Other Maritime Forces (forthcoming). It also includes Basing and Forward Presence in the Asia-Pacific (NIP, 2014/paperback 2024), the CMSI volume China’s Near Seas Combat Capabilities (2014), and the NWC Newport Paper China’s Nuclear Force Modernization (2005).