The Bernard Brodie Prize

Bernard Brodie lecturing, by Walter Sanders for Life Magazine, September 1946
Bernard Brodie lecturing, by Walter Sanders for Life Magazine, September 1946

Contemporary Security Policy awards the Bernard Brodie Prize annually to the author(s) of an outstanding article published in the journal the previous year.

The award is named for Dr. Bernard Brodie (1918-1978), author of The Absolute Weapon (1946), Strategy in the Missile Age (1958) and War and Strategy (1973). Brodie’s ideas remain at the center of security debates to this day. One of the first analysts to cross between official and academic environments, he pioneered the very model of civilian influence that Contemporary Security Policy represents.

A shortlist for the award is put together by the editor of Contemporary Security Policy. The Bernard Brodie Prize is awarded by a jury from the Editorial Board. Contemporary Security Policy is honoured to acknowledge the permission of Brodie’s son, Dr. Bruce R. Brodie, to use his father’s name.

The winners of the Bernard Brodie Prize are:

  • Kjølv Egeland, ‘A theory of nuclear disarmament: Cases, analogies, and the role of the non-proliferation regime’, January 2022.
  • Eleanor Gordon & Katrina Lee-Koo, ‘Addressing the security needs of adolescent girls in protracted crises: Inclusive, responsive, and effective?’, January 2021.
  • Elvira Rosert & Frank Sauer, ‘How (not) to stop the killer robots: A comparative analysis of humanitarian disarmament campaign strategies’, January 2021.
  • Jeffrey Berejikian & Zachary Zwald, ‘Why language matters: Shaping public risk tolerance during deterrence crises’, October 2020;
  • Tracey German, ‘Harnessing protest potential: Russian strategic culture and the colored revolutions’, October 2020;
  • Jo Jakobsen & Tor G. Jakobsen, ‘Tripwires and free-riders: Do forward-deployed U.S. troops reduce the willingness of host-country citizens to fight for their country?’, April 2019;
  • David H. Ucko & Thomas A. Marks, ‘Violence in context: Mapping the strategies and operational art of irregular warfare’, April 2018;
  • Betcy Jose, ‘Not completely the new normal: How Human Rights Watch tried to suppress the targeted killing norm’, August 2017;
  • Martin Senn & Jodok Troy, ‘The transformation of targeted killing and international order’, August 2017;
  • Trine Flockhart, ‘The coming multi-order world’, April 2016;
  • John Mitton, ‘Selling Schelling Short: Reputations and American Coercive Diplomacy after Syria’, December 2015;
  • Wyn Bowen and Matthew Moran, ‘Iran’s Nuclear Program: A Case Study in Hedging’, April 2014;
  • Nick Ritchie, ‘Valuing and Devaluing Nuclear Weapons’, April 2013;
  • Patrick M. Morgan, ‘The State of Deterrence in International Politics Today’, April 2012;
  • Sebastian Mayer, ‘Embedded Politics, Growing Informalization? How Nato and the EU Transform Provision of External Security’, August 2011;
  • Jeffrey Knopf, ‘The Fourth Wave in Deterrence Research’, April 2010;
  • Diane E. Davis, ‘Non-State Armed Actors, New Imagined Communities, and Shifting Patterns of Sovereignty and Insecurity in the Modern World’, August 2009.

The winning articles of the Brodie Prize are accessible through Taylor and Francis.