Dr. Jared McKinney Shares Insights on Avoiding War in the Taiwan Strait
RCB President Gordon Martin and Rotarian Matt Lyons with Dr. McKinney
This week the Rotary Club of Birmingham (RCB) welcomed Dr. Jared McKinney, Assistant Professor of International Security at Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.
The expert on international relations and East Asia discussed the potential for conflict between Taiwan and China, based on the book he co-authored: Deterrence Gap: Avoiding War in the Taiwan Strait. Dr. McKinney shared constraints that have eroded and variables that previously incentivized restraint that have been removed over time. He highlighted strategies that can be employed to promote peace and the global importance of maintaining stability in the region.
Bio for Dr. Jared McKinney
Dr. Jared McKinney is an assistant professor of international security at Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. A specialist in international relations and East Asia, he supports the college’s refocus on strategic competition.
In November 2021, Dr. McKinney co-authored an essay in Parameters that proposed a new way to think about defending Taiwan. The essay, the most popular ever published by the journal, provoked a worldwide discussion and a response from the Chinese Government, which denounced it as “heresy.” Dr. McKinney is also the book reviews editor for the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs. He regularly lectures on Chinese foreign policy for multiple PME colleges and academies. In his previous assignment in the Global College of Professional Military Education at Air University, he supervised 9 faculty members in developing, sustaining, and teaching 16 distance learning courses delivered to 22,000 DOD personnel worldwide each year.
Dr. McKinney received a B.A. in History from Patrick Henry College; a M.S. in Defense and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University; a M.S. in International Affairs from the London School of Economics and Peking University; and a Ph.D. in International Relations from Nanyang Technological University.
Dr. McKinney's honors include 2022 Outstanding Airman of the Year, Civilian Supervisory Category IV, Air Education and Training Command; First Place, U.S. Army War College Contemporary Strategy and Landpower Essay Award; 2023 Lecturer of the Year, Air War College; 2021 Civilian Instructor of the Year, Global College of Professional Military Education; and 2020 Civilian of the Year, Non-Supervisory Category IV, Air Command and Staff College.
His publications include “Nothing Fails Like Success: The London Ambassadors’ Conference and the Coming of the First World War,” Journal of Strategic Studies, July 2018; with Peter Harris, “Broken Nest: Deterring China from Invading Taiwan,” Parameters, Winter 2021-2022; and “The Scholar and the Ghost: Thucydides, China’s Rise, and Major Power War,” Journal of Contemporary China, May 2022.