Atlantic Council

Biography

Banning Garrett

Dr. Banning Garrett is the Director of the Asia Program, a position he has held since March 2009 and previously held previously from January 2003 through January 2007.  Garrett is also director of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight Initiative, which has cooperated closely with the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in production of the NIC’s unclassified, quadrennial long-term global trends assessments. Previously, he was the Director of the Initiative for U.S.-China Cooperation on Energy and Climate at the Asia Society’s Center for U.S.-China Relations and was the founding Executive Director of the Institute for Sino-American International Dialogue (ISAID) at the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver. Before joining the Council in January 2003, Dr. Garrett was a consultant for 22 years to the Department of Defense and other U.S. Government agencies carrying on a strategic dialogue with China and other countries in Asia. He was also a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a founding board member of the U.S. Committee for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (USCSCAP).

Garrett has written extensively on a wide range of issues, including U.S.-China relations and long-term global trends; cooperation with China on climate change, energy, and other strategic issues; Chinese foreign policy and views of the strategic environment; globalization and its strategic impact; U.S. defense policy and Asian security; arms control; and the strategic impact of new technologies. Garrett has published in numerous journals and media outlets, including The New York Times, CNN.com, The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, Huffington Post, International Security, The Washington Quarterly, Asian Survey, The Globalist, Arms Control Today, The Far Eastern Economic Review, The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Contemporary Southeast Asia, The International Economy, Global Times, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Chinadialogue, and YaleGlobal, and has contributed to many edited volumes on Asian and strategic affairs.  He has also been interviewed by many broadcast media outlets, including CNN, C-Span, Al-Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, BBC, Voice of America, CCTV, and Channel News Asia. 

Garrett has made more than 50 trips to China since 1981 for consultations with Chinese officials and analysts as well as numerous similar visits to Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea in East Asia and to many countries in Europe. He has also traveled with the NIC to most of the G-20 countries for global trends consultations. Garrett received his BA from Stanford University and his PhD from Brandeis University.