Kaufman Bio Photo
Dockson Professor of Public Policy, Pepperdine University
2017 Speaker • 2016 Speaker • 2019 Speaker

Malibu, California

Robert G. Kaufman has been appointed the Robert and Katheryn Dockson Professor of Public Policy at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy. He is a political scientist specializing in American foreign policy, national security, international relations and various aspects of American politics. He has written frequently for scholarly journals and popular publications, including the Wall Street Journal (with a September 2016 op-ed, “What Is a Reagan Conservative To Do?”), the Weekly Standard, Policy Review, the Washington Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Kaufman is the author of four books, including his most recent, Dangerous Doctrine: How Obama’s Grand Strategy Weakened America. His other publications include In Defense of the Bush Doctrine; a biography, Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics, which received the Emil and Katherine Sick Award for the best book on the history of the Pacific Northwest; and Arms Control During the Pre-Nuclear Era. He also assisted President Richard M. Nixon in the research and writing of Nixon’s final book, Beyond Peace.

Kaufman is a former Bradley Scholar and current adjunct scholar at the Heritage Foundation, and he has taught at Colgate University, the U.S. Naval War College and the University of Vermont. He received a JD from Georgetown University Law Center and his BA, MA, MPhil and PhD from Columbia University. In May 2016 Kaufman received an LLM in dispute resolution from the Straus Institute at the Pepperdine University School of Law.