Thomas Ricks bio

Thomas Ricks is Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a nonpartisan research institution specializing in national security and defense policies. He is also a contributing editor to the Foreign Policy magazine, for which he writes a daily blog, “The Best Defense,” on national security. He received the 2010 National Magazine Award for best blog of the year.

From 2000-2008 Ricks was Special Military Correspondent for The Washington Post. He was part of a team that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize on National Reporting for covering the beginning of the U.S. counteroffensive against terrorism, shortly after 9/11.

Prior to writing for The Washington Post, Ricks covered the military beat at the Wall Street Journal for 17 years. He was also part of a Wall Street Journal team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize on National Reporting for a series on the U.S. military and meeting the demands of the 21st century.

His book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq was a No. 1 New York Times best seller and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007.

• Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
• Contributing Editor, Foreign Policy magazine
• Author, “The Best Defense” blog, ForeignPolicy.com
• Member, Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society
• Member,  Society for Military History
• Member, International Institute for Strategic Studies
• Special Military Correspondent, The Washington Post, 2000-2008
• Former Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

• Degree unknown, Yale University, 1977

• The Gamble: General Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008, 2009
• Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2007
• Making the Corps, 2007
• A Soldier’s Duty,  2001