Dr. Xiaoming Zhang is associate professor in the Department of Strategy at the Air War College, teaching strategy, and subjects on China and East Asia. He earned his Ph.D. in history from The University of Iowa in 1994, and taught at Texas Tech University and Texas A&M International University prior to joining the Air War College. Dr. Zhang is the author of a number of articles on Chinese military involvement in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and Sino-Soviet relations during these conflicts, and of Red Wings over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union and the Air War in Korea (Texas A&M University Press, 2002). His writings have appeared in China Quarterly, Journal of Cold War Studies, The Journal of Conflict Studies Security Studies, and The Journal of Military History. The Journal of Military History has twice selected him to receive the Moncado Prize for excellence in the writing of military history. He is currently writing a book on China’s 1979 war with Vietnam, and articles on the Chinese air force. His area of expertise includes Chinese military history, People’s Liberation Army Air Force, the Korean War and air war especially, the Vietnam War, and China-U.S. and China-Soviet relations.
Dr. Zachary Zwald is an Assistant Professor in the USAF Counterproliferation Center and the Air War College. He received his PhD in 2007 from the Department of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley, with a focus on International Relations. Since then, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University and taught in the Department of Politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. His principal research and teaching interests are the psychological and organizational aspects of judgment and decision-making under high and persistent uncertainty, particularly as they pertain to the relationship between nuclear weapons and international security (e.g. the theory and practice of deterrence, the causes and consequences of proliferation, as well as the normative and institutional aspects of arms control) and issues at the intersection of science, technology, and security (e.g. ballistic missile defense, the weaponization of space, climate change, and genetic modification). Currently, his research projects examine the patterns of theory-driven thinking behind U.S. policymakers’ positions on ballistic missile defense as well as on nuclear doctrine and force structure.
