Alexander Noyes

Alexander Noyes is a fellow in the Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Brookings Institution. He has expertise and senior-level U.S. government policy experience across a range of international security issues, including U.S. defense policy, military assistance, irregular warfare, coups, and democratization.

From 2021 to 2023 Noyes served in the Department of Defense (DoD) as a senior advisor and then deputy director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy. In these roles, he led efforts to evaluate the strategic outcomes of all DoD security cooperation globally–spearheading the Department’s first ever “Learning Agenda”–and provided policy oversight for DoD’s institutional capacity building advisory programs in over 100 countries. From 2015-17 he worked for the U.S. Security Governance Initiative, a White House initiative launched by President Obama to improve security governance in Africa. He has held research roles at RAND, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for Defense Analyses, the Council on Foreign Relations, and DoD’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Noyes has two forthcoming books. The first, with Yale University Press, is titled “War at Arm’s Length: How America Can Build Effective Military Partners” (co-authored with Richard Bennet). The second, with the University of Pennsylvania Press, is titled “Compromised Coalitions: The Paradox of Post-Conflict Power Sharing in Africa.” He has written for or appeared in: The New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Foreign Policy, CNN, BBC News, BBC Radio, International Herald Tribune, Boston Globe, CFR.org, War On The Rocks, Lawfare, Semafor, Daily Beast, Voice of America, Christian Science Monitor, World Politics Review, Vox News, Vice News, ABC (Australia), The Herald (Zimbabwe), Daily Maverick (South Africa), African Arguments, Democracy in Africa, The Daily Podcast (NYT), Into Africa Podcast, African Studies Quarterly, International Peacekeeping, Parameters (Army War College Quarterly), several edited volumes, and dozens of peer-reviewed RAND and other think tank reports.

Noyes holds a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University and a bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College. He is an adjunct political scientist at RAND and a member of the External Advisory Group on Security Sector Reform at the U.S. Institute of Peace.