Zachery Tyson Brown

Strategic Competition Officer for the Office of the Secretary of Defense

 Zachery Tyson Brown is a national security futurist focused on rethinking defense and intelligence for the 21st-century. A former defense intelligence officer, and a United States Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, Zach now consults for the Department of Defense and is a Security Fellow with the Truman National Security Project. Since leaving the civil service service in 2018, he has worked to help decision-makers both inside and outside government better understand the complex challenges we face in a rapidly changing world—and more importantly how they might better adapt to address them.

Having served in uniform, as a government civilian, and as a consultant for the intelligence community and various defense clients, Zach has seen both the challenges we face and the opportunities that lie before us from a variety of perspectives. While in the military, Zach was an intelligence analyst and later a leader of multi-disciplinary intelligence teams during combat deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. As a civil servant, he served as a dedicated intelligence briefer to senior defense officials and as a current intelligence team chief within the United States Department of Defense. As a consultant, he has and continues to support various special programs within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. 

Zach holds a Master of Arts in Military History and a Master of Arts in International Relations from American Military University, and most recently graduated with a Master of Science in Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University. His MSSI thesis, “Adaptive Intelligence for an Uncertain Age,” was presented the Lt. Col Michael D. Kuszewski Award for Outstanding Master’s Thesis on Operations-Intelligence Partnership. Zach is a prolific writer and public speaker whose articles have appeared in outlets such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, DefenseOne, War on the Rocks, and others. He is a proclaimed U.S. Army Futures Command “Mad Scientist,” a voracious reader, and serves as Vice President of the Military Writers Guild.