Dr. Bernie Kaussler

From Proxy Wars to Prototypes: How a Political Scientist Found His Place in National Security Innovation

When Dr. Bernie Kaussler first encountered Hacking for Defense (H4D), it wasn’t through the expected channels of engineering or entrepreneurship. It was through diplomacy.

In 2017, JMU’s xLabs introduced H4D as an offshoot of its work on conflict and security studies. Kaussler, a political scientist by training, had built his career around international conflict resolution, nuclear diplomacy, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. But the experiential nature of H4D, and its audacious promise to collapse the distance between classroom theory and real-world urgency, pulled him in.

“I was a fish out of water,” Kaussler admits. “Policy folks like me aren’t used to turning out prototypes. But that’s exactly what this program demands. And it’s transformed how I teach everything else.”

For Kaussler, H4D isn’t just a course. It’s a commitment—to students, to national service, and to a more responsive, more capable public sector. His mission is clear: educate and train the next generation of technically competent public servants. And at JMU, that means bringing together students from engineering, political science, intelligence analysis, and beyond to work on hard, unsolved problems from real government sponsors.

Builders in Every Discipline

What sets H4D students apart?

“They come with a diversity of worldviews and a willingness to see through someone else’s lens,” Kaussler says. “In diplomacy, that’s everything. But in national security innovation, it’s a superpower.”

Each semester begins with a survey, not just of skills, but of perspectives. Students are then placed into interdisciplinary teams, blending hard tech with soft power, analytical rigor with intuitive insight. These aren’t startups chasing unicorn valuations. They’re builders chasing outcomes.

A NATO Moment That Still Echoes

One of the defining moments of Kaussler’s time teaching H4D came in 2018, when Allied Command Transformation (ACT) in Norfolk presented a problem around troop mobilization across Europe. The challenge? NATO decision-making was too slow.

The team developed a decision-learning tool to measure whether officers were risk-tolerant or risk-averse, data that could help optimize command decisions in real time. That team went all the way to Croatia for a NATO event. One student is now pursuing a Ph.D. at UC Davis to continue the research.

“That moment still gives me chills,” Kaussler reflects. “It’s not just theory anymore. It’s impact.”

More recently, one of Kaussler’s teams tackled the aging system used to manage radio frequency spectrum across borders. Their prototype, SpecTrack, turned a paper-based process into a 21st-century tool. The team formed an LLC, applied to a summer incubator, and even published findings with BMNT.

Rewiring the Researcher’s Brain

Teaching H4D hasn’t just reshaped how Kaussler guides students. It has reshaped how he sees his own discipline.

“Design thinking wasn’t part of my training,” he says. “As a political scientist, I was used to writing policy recommendations. Now, I’m prototyping ideas. The vulnerability of that process—the speed, the feedback, the iteration—it’s completely changed how I approach research.”

And that shift, he believes, is essential. Because if the next generation of public servants is going to meet the moment, they’ll need more than policy memos. They’ll need tools, conviction, and a classroom that prepares them for both.