Dr. Gordon Adams is Professor Emeritus of International Politics at the School of International Service, American University. He is a non-resident fellow of Washington-based Quincy Institute and a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center. He retired to Maine, after a long career in national security policy-making and budgeting. In 1983 he founded the Defense Budget Project in Washington, which he directed for 10 years, and which later became the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
In 1993 he became the Senior White House budget official for national security spending as Associate Director of the Office of Management and Budget, where he spent five years overseeing the budgets and operations for intelligence, defense, diplomacy, and foreign assistance. After a brief stint as Deputy Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, he taught national security policy, institutions, and budgeting at the Elliott School, George Washington University, and at the School of International Service, American University.
He has written, co-written, or edited several books on national security, including Buying National Security: How America Plans and Pays for Its Global Role and Safety at Home (Routledge, 2010) and Mission Creep: The Militarization of US Foreign Policy? (Georgetown, 2014). He writes and speaks regularly on national security and foreign policy issue and has appeared in or on the New York Times, Foreign Policy, Responsible Statecraft, Maine’s own Maine Calling, and many other publications and media outlets.
In Maine, Dr. Adams has served on the Advisory Committee to Refugee and Immigration Services, Catholic Charities, and the Program Committee for the Camden Conference. He is also an active thespian, with eight years of experience on stage in Washington, DC and now seven years in Maine theaters, including the Camden Shakespeare Festival. He has played such roles as Friar Laurence (Camden), King Lear (Studio Theater, Bath), and Hamm in Endgame (Maryland Players, Silver Spring). He lives in Brunswick where he actively writes poetry, acts, opines, gardens, and tends to his cat.
His talk titled "A New Approach to Formulating Foreign Policy" was recorded Monday, December 13, 2021 in Rockland, Maine by the Mid-Coast Forum on Foreign Relations.