Episode 17: Seventy Tons of Steel and Sex Appeal

In Episode 17, Josh O’Day is joined by co-host Josh Chang as the two take to the air to interview Colonel Michael Sullivan, Ph.D., an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He teaches SEST 501 – Strategy, Policy, and Military Operations, which is one of the two core courses that first year students are required to take. Colonel Sullivan is in his 27th year as an Active duty Army officer, having deployed to Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In the episode, Josh and Josh discuss Colonel Sullivan’s military career, training foreign military personnel, and how he hopes LucasFilm will allow him to teach a course on Civ-Mil relations using the Clone Wars as a case study. 

About the Guest

Michael D. Sullivan is adjunct faculty at both the School of Foreign Service and McCourt School of Public Policy. He served as the Director of Programs at Strategic Capacity Group, a non-profit focused on enhancing the security sector of partner nations. Before retiring as a Colonel from the United States Army, he served as an Assistant Professor, Department of War and Conflict Studies (WACS), College of International Security Affairs (CISA) of the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, D.C. and the JCS Chair. He was commissioned through the United States Army Military Academy at West Point in 1994 as an Infantry Officer. He served with the 82d Airborne Division then branch transferred to Armor branch. He served in Kosovo in 1999-2000, and Iraq (2004, 2007, 2009-10, 2011, 2017-2018) all in an advisory capacity working with Foreign Military Forces.

He won the Douglas A. MacArthur Leadership Award in 2002, was named a Master Strategist at Command and General Staff College in 2006, and won the Douglas A. MacArthur Writing Award in 2006. He is a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies, holds master’s degrees from American Military University, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and Kansas State University.

He commanded the United States Army Garrison in Baumholder, Germany from 2012-2014 then attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University where he earned his Ph.D. in International Relations. At Tufts, he was inducted into the Tufts Honos Civicus Society for his charity work with wounded Veterans and the Boston lacrosse community through his Shootout for Soldiers event. He also served as the Director of the Chief’s Initiatives Group for the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq in the United States Embassy Baghdad from June 2017-June 2018. He is a self-declared expert in all things Star Wars and focuses his intergalactic study efforts on the renowned Clone Wars series in his free time.

Views expressed are personal and do not represent the views of GSSR or any other entity.