Michael Sharnoff

Dr. Michael Sharnoff is an Associate Professor at the National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. In this role, he organizes, moderates, and delivers lectures and seminars on topics related to the politics and security of the Middle East. He has taught at Georgetown University, and prior to joining the NESA Center, he served as Associate Professor of Middle East Studies and Director of Regional Studies at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School of National Security. While at DMGS, Dr. Sharnoff taught graduate courses on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the history and politics of the modern Middle East. In 2012, he launched Global Views, an op-ed forum on international affairs and popular culture.

Dr. Sharnoff’s main fields of interest are the modern political and diplomatic history of the Middle East. These interests converged in his first book, Nasser’s Peace: Egypt’s Response to the 1967 War with Israel (Routledge, 2017), which examines how a developed country can rival the world powers and how fluid the definition of peace can be. His current research examines Jordan’s relationship with the West Bank and Arab challenges to Hashemite custodianship of the holy places in Jerusalem.

Dr. Sharnoff’s articles and editorials have appeared in Foreign Policy, Al Arabiya, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, The Washington Post, Contemporary Review of the Middle East, Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and the British Journal of Middle East Studies, among other outlets. He holds a Ph.D. in Middle East Studies from King’s College, London, and is a member of the American Historical Association and Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa.