Alice Hunt Friend

Alice Hunt Friend is a senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she focuses on African security issues and U.S. civil-military relations. From 2012 to 2014, she was the principal director for African affairs in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, where she focused primarily on North and West African counterterrorism policy. Dr. Friend joined the Department of Defense in 2009 as special assistant to the under secretary of defense for policy and also served as the senior adviser to the deputy under secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and forces and as country director for Pakistan. She has held previous research positions at CSIS and the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C., and has worked at the International Labor Organization in Geneva and with the Senegalese Association for Research, Study, and Aid to Development. Dr. Friend completed her Ph.D. at American University’s School of International Service, where she focused on the civil-military relations of special operations, unmanned systems, and cyber warfare. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and also holds a master’s degree in international relations from American University and a bachelor’s degree in government from Smith College.