Andrew Exum (born 1978–1979) is an American scholar of the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

, a former

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

officer. He was a part of General

Stanley McChrystal Stanley Allen McChrystal (born 14 August 1954) is a retired United States Army General (United States), general best known for his command of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) from 2003 to 2008 during which his organization was credited w ...

's review of the American strategy in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

Life

Exum graduated from

The McCallie School The McCallie School is a boys' college-preparatory school located on Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. The school was founded in 1905 and now has 322 boarding students in grades 9–12 and 657 day students in grades 6� ...

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

(1996) and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

(2000), where he was a columnist for the ''

Daily Pennsylvanian ''The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc.'' is the independent student media organization of the University of Pennsylvania. The DP, Inc. publishes ''The Daily Pennsylvanian'' newspaper, ''34th Street'' magazine, and ''Under the Button'' satirical pu ...

'', a member of Sigma Nu fraternity, and a member of the Sphinx Senior Society. As a

officer, he led a platoon of light infantry in Afghanistan following the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

and subsequently led a platoon of Army Rangers as a part of special operations task forces in

Kuwait Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in West Asia and the geopolitical region known as the Middle East. It is situated in the northern edge of the Arabian Peninsula at the head of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to Iraq–Kuwait ...

and

with the rank of captain. He was commissioned as an officer through the University of Pennsylvania's

Army ROTC The Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (AROTC) is the United States Army component of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. It is the largest Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program which is a group of college and university-based officer tr ...

program, which he initially joined as a means of financing his education there. He graduated in 2000 with a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

and English literature. He is a veteran of

Operation Anaconda Operation Anaconda or the Battle of Shah-i-Kot was a military operation that took place in early March 2002 as part of the War in Afghanistan. CIA paramilitary officers, working with their allies, attempted to destroy al-Qaeda and Taliban force ...

. He earned a master's degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the

American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB; ) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its main campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, autonomous board of trustees and offers programs le ...

. In 2006–2007, Exum was a Soref fellow at the

Washington Institute for Near East Policy The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), also known simply as The Washington Institute (TWI), is a pro-Israel American think tank based in Washington, D.C., focused on the foreign policy of the United States in the Near East. WINE ...

. He later studied towards a doctorate from the

Department of War Studies, King's College London The Department of War Studies (DWS) is an academic department in the School of Security Studies within the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy at King's College London in London, United Kingdom. Senior government officials, members of t ...

. Blake Hounshell of ''

Foreign Policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

'' calls Exum, "one of the sharpest Middle East analysts around." While still on active duty, but "laid up with a non-combat knee injury," Exum wrote his first book, ''This Man's Army: A Soldier's Story from the Front Lines of the War on Terrorism.'' On May 30, 2008, Exum revealed himself to be the founder of the blog ''Abu Muqawama'' (Arabic: أبوالمقاومة for "father or expert of the Resistance"). This blog, "dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies," was followed by many notable students and practitioners of counterinsurgency in the military, academia, and the media. It has also been referred to as Small Wars Journal's "rogue cousin" partially due to the large overlap in topics and participants and due to its ability to initiate a discussion about topics that are not yet appropriate for the more professional forum. At the time of the revelation, Exum also announced he was leaving the blog to pursue his research. Exum became a Fellow of the

Center for a New American Security The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) is a think tank in Washington, D.C., specializing in United States national security issues, including terrorism, irregular warfare, the future of the U.S. military, the emergence of Asia as a global p ...

(CNAS). He returned to the blog, now hosted at CNAS, continuing to post under the pseudonym Abu Muqawama. He subsequently began posting under his own name. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy in the US Government from 2015 to 2016.

Views

Exum has criticized several strategic elements of the War on Terror. In particular, he is critical of the U.S. government's reliance on private military corporations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as what he sees as the misuse of drones in eliminating terror targets.

Books

*''This Man's Army: A Soldier's Story from the Front Lines of the War on Terrorism''

References

External links

Exum's CNAS bioAbu Muqawama
Archive of Exum's blog {{DEFAULTSORT:Exum, Andrew Middle Eastern studies in the United States The Daily Pennsylvanian people Counterinsurgency theorists Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) United States Army officers United States Army personnel of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) American bloggers Alumni of King's College London Center for a New American Security