Near East South Asia

Near East South Asia

Center for Strategic Studies

Col. Daniel E. Curfiss, USMC (ret.)

Daniel E. Curfiss joined the NESA Center in August of 2005 as the Program Manager for Afghanistan and Iraq. Col. Curfiss is a retired United States Marine Corps infantry officer. In that capacity, he worked to provide a composite program for capacity-building training and technical support to help the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq transition as they developed and refined their defense and national security institutions. Previously, he instructed civil servants in Iraq, both at the Ministry of Defense and on the staff of the Iraqi National Security Advisor, in capacity-building, policy development and matters of national security policy and strategy.

He worked in Nigeria from August of 2002 until February of 2004 on the Nigeria Civil-Military Assistance Program Combined Action Team of senior officers from the Nigerian Armed Forces and retired senior military officers from the United States Armed Forces in a joint U.S./Nigeria venture to democratize the Ministry of Defense and revitalize the Nigerian Armed Forces.

Col. Curfiss spent 28 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, and is a veteran of both Vietnam and Gulf War I. He commanded infantry units at the rifle and reconnaissance platoon, rifle company, infantry battalion and Marine Expeditionary Unit levels. He served as the senior advisor to the brigade commander of the first brigade of Saudi marines after Desert Storm, as he resided for one year in Jubail, Saudi Arabia.

    Education
  • M.S., Military Science, U.S. Army Command and Staff College
  • Operational Level of War, U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School
  • B.A., History, Ohio State University
    Areas of Interest
  • National Security Policy and Strategy
  • Stability and Reconstruction Operations
  • Foreign relations and security issues
  • Counter-Insurgency Operations

Daniel E. Curfiss, Associate Professor

 

Daniel Curfiss

"I have often inquired myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this (Nation) so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance."

~ President Abraham Lincoln

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    Suggested Readings
  • Kaplan, F. (2008). Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
  • Katzenstein, P. (ed.) (1996). The Culture of National Security. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Oren, M. (2007). Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle Eat -- 1776 to the Present. New York and London: W.W. Norton.
  • Tellis, A. and Wills, M. (eds.) (2005). Strategic Asia 2005-2006: Military Modernization in an Era of Uncertainty. Washington, DC: National Bureau of Asian Research. [download]
  • Walt, S. (2006). Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy. New York and London: W.W. Norton.