Mershon Center for International Security Studies

10/01/2026

Mershon Center Mason Chair Peter Mansoor was interviewed by NewsNation on various topics including Iran, Ukraine, and the Pentagon. https://app.latakoo.com/asset/25044550?tab=transcript&share=5l7dfmpjhfekps5qw7yjpjuxx6n3wkwl

09/23/2026

Teri Murphy & Derek Congram talked to NBC4 about how Mershon Search Lab and Colombia’s Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas dadas por Desaparecidas (UBPD), a state agency, work together to help identify 137,000 missing people in Colombia.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Ohio State University researchers are helping Colombian authorities in their quest to identify and bring home 137,000 missing people. “When we bring these things to li…

09/11/2026

"Just Security" published a contribution from Dakota Rudesill, professor of law and Mershon affiliate, on their online symposium on 9/11 that includes essays by national security professionals who experienced 9/11 and had their work and lives shaped by it.

Rudesill said: “the selfless courage of the passengers on Flight 93 who probably saved the Capitol and many of us who were there, framed my own decision to move from budgeteering on Capitol Hill to a career in the law.”

Read the full reflection

How the September 11 attacks, and the U.S. response that followed, changed the world and the way we approach the moment we are in today.

09/10/2026

Peter Mansoor, Mershon Center's Mason Chair in Military History, recently appeared on CNN as one of the military experts unpacking Hegseth's purges of U.S. military leadership.

In the aftermath of the resignation of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll,...

09/02/2026

Madhumita Dutta, associate professor of Geography & Mershon affiliate, published an article in The Wire about Jahlma Nallah, a glacial stream that floods in the sun. This phenomenon, affecting thousands of rural mountain households, local economy and ecology every summer, has no well-researched global parallels to explain what is happening in this remote part of the Indian Himalayas.

This phenomenon, affecting thousands of rural mountain households, local economy and ecology every summer, has no well-researched global parallels to explain what is happening in this remote part of the Indian Himalayas.

07/23/2026

Check out Mershon Center Hayes Chair in National Security Christopher McKnight Nichols talking to Don Wildman of the American History Hit podcast about how the US defined a new world order at the start of the 20th century.

Listen to What Made America? Birth Of A Superpower from American History Hit. At the start of the 20th century after victory in the Spanish-American War, the US found itself as a colonial power. How did it decide NOT to follow down the same road as the imperial powers of Europe afterwards? Today Pro...

07/10/2026

Read how Christopher McKnight Nichols, Mershon Center Hayes Chair in National Security, is leading a new conversation on US grand strategy.

What has been, is, and should be U.S. grand strategy?

06/25/2026

Peter Mansoor, Mershon Center Mason Chair, talked to Military Times about whether the US military can preserve decades of wartime experience.

Thousands of post-9/11 veterans are reaching retirement. Whether the lessons they learned during two decades of combat will be retained remains to be seen.

06/18/2026

Christopher Gelpi, Mershon Center senior faculty fellow and Arts and Sciences at Ohio State professor of political science, published the Opinion piece "Operation Epic Fail: We aren't done paying for Trump- created Iran crisis" in The Columbus Dispatch

The real lesson of this disastrous war is that there are no shortcuts to security. Bombastic threats only look impressive on cable news.

06/15/2026

Christopher McKnight Nichols, Mershon Center Hayes Chair, talked to the The New York Times about the world's first billionaire and the world's first trillionaire.

John D. Rockefeller, the Gilded Age oil baron, became America’s first billionaire in 1916. Like Elon Musk’s ascension, the milestone made headlines.