Dr. Andrew Scobell is a distinguished fellow with the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He focuses on U.S.-China relations, China’s armed forces and defense policy and China’s foreign relations with countries and regions around the world — with a particular emphasis on the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

He previously spent more than 10 years as a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where his research and publications focused on China and the Indo-Pacific. Prior to RAND, Scobell was an associate professor at the George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service and founding director of the China Certificate Program at Texas A&M University. From 1999 to 2007 he served as associate research professor in the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Dr. Scobell’s research interests include authoritarianism, communism and post-communism, civil-military relations, patterns and processes of cooperation and conflict, the use of armed force, crisis management, coercive diplomacy, deterrence, grand strategy and military strategy. He has authored or co-authored two books, 30 reports and more than 40 journal articles. He has also edited or co-edited 20 volumes.

Dr. Scobell earned a doctorate from Columbia University, a master’s from the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and a bachelor’s from Whitman College. His awards include the Donald Bren Chair in Non-Western Strategic Thought at Marine Corps University, the Silver Star Award at Texas A&M University, the John Madigan Award at the U.S. Army War College, the Victor Olorunsola Award at the University of Louisville. He has also been a foreign language and area studies fellow at Columbia University and a foreign affairs and national defense fellow at the Congressional Research Service. Dr. Scobell was born and raised in Hong Kong.

Publications By Andrew

Xi and Putin Flaunt Deepening Ties, Flout the U.S.-led Order

Xi and Putin Flaunt Deepening Ties, Flout the U.S.-led Order

Friday, March 24, 2023

By: Heather Ashby, Ph.D.;  Mary Glantz, Ph.D.;  Jennifer Staats, Ph.D.;  Andrew Scobell, Ph.D.

Thirteen months after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, Moscow and Beijing are continuing to deepen their ties even as China has sought to portray itself as a neutral player in the war. This week’s summit between Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin comes on the heels of the International Criminal Court’s warrant for Putin for war crimes. For Putin, the summit demonstrated that despite Western sanction and opprobrium, Russia is not an isolated pariah state. Meanwhile, Xi used the summit to further the image he has tried to burnish of Beijing as a peacemaker and advance his vision of an alternative multilateral order, breaking away from the U.S.-led system.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Global Policy

What China's 'Peace Plan' Reveals about its Stance on Russia's War on Ukraine

What China's 'Peace Plan' Reveals about its Stance on Russia's War on Ukraine

Thursday, March 2, 2023

By: Carla Freeman, Ph.D.;  Mary Glantz, Ph.D.;  Andrew Scobell, Ph.D.

Despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — which marks a clear violation of international law — Moscow has enjoyed support from a number of countries. Foremost among these is China. Over the last year, Beijing has not supported Russia in U.N. votes, has refrained from providing Russia with weapons, and has publicly proclaimed neutrality. But China has also refused to condemn the invasion, often repeated the Kremlin’s talking points about the war, opposed sanctions against Russia and helped prop up its economy. On the anniversary of the invasion, China released what it had previewed as a peace plan, which really amounted to a statement of principles reflecting Beijing’s longstanding talking points about the war.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Global Policy

The China-Russia ‘Alliance’: Double the Danger or Limited Partnership?

The China-Russia ‘Alliance’: Double the Danger or Limited Partnership?

Thursday, December 15, 2022

By: Andrew Scobell, Ph.D.;  Niklas Swanström, Ph.D.

According to the recently released 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy, China and Russia “are increasingly aligned with each other but the challenges they pose are, in important ways, distinct.” These challenges are felt all around the world, not least in Europe and the United States. All too rarely explored, however, is when and how Beijing and Moscow coordinate or cooperate and what this means for the United States and its allies and partners.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Global Policy

Andrew Scobell on China’s Zero-COVID Protests

Andrew Scobell on China’s Zero-COVID Protests

Thursday, December 8, 2022

By: Andrew Scobell, Ph.D.

After protests forced China to ease its zero-COVID policies, Xi Jinping will need to weigh socioeconomic stability against his authoritarian aims, says USIP’s Andrew Scobell: “You’re seeing domestically what many countries have noticed China doing beyond its borders: Being more assertive or aggressive.”

Type: Podcast

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