Dr. Amy Austin Holmes is a scholar of U.S. foreign policy, great‑power competition, and comparative security politics. She holds a dual appointment at the Bush School of Government & Public Service in Washington, DC, and as Research Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University. Her research spans the global American military posture, NATO, non‑state armed actors, and the evolution of de facto states. Dr. Holmes earned her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and later served as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Belfer Center. She is one of seven scholars nationwide awarded a Minerva‑Decur research grant to examine maritime and territorial competition across the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and the South China Sea. Her practitioner experience includes service at the U.S. Department of State, where she worked on Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Syria, and Iraq. She is the author of three books with Cambridge and Oxford University Press and has conducted extensive fieldwork across the region.