John Gans

Over the course of his career, Gans has also worked with Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the 2008 Beijing Olympic bid delegation, American Airlines, and, in the wake of September 11, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at Ground Zero. Gans is also a reserve Navy Public Affairs Officer (PAO) and part of the U.S. Fifth Fleet reserve component at Bahrain and Quincy, Massachusetts. 

Gans’ book White House Warriors: How the National Security Council has Transformed the American Way of War will be released in 2018. In his PhD dissertation, “The Midnight Watch: The NSC Staff, Drift, and Presidential Decision in Conflict,” Gans wrote a comprehensive study of the NSC Staff’s culture, influence, and impact on presidential decision-making.

In addition to his professional and academic writing, Gans has published widely in The International Herald Tribune, The Times of London Literary Supplement, Survival, The Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, The American Interest, and The Baltimore Sun. He writes frequently for The Atlantic and also contributed a chapter to the book 2008 US Presidential Election: A Story in Four Acts (2009, USA and Italy). Additionally, Gans has built a following with his writing on musician Bruce Springsteen and analysis of the singer’s unique influence, publishing a long-form article provoking the question, “Did Springsteen win the Cold War?”

In addition to his MA (2009) and PhD (2014) from SAIS, Gans received his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University. He lives in Washington with his wife, Anjuli Srivastava Gans, a pediatrician, and their son.