Roy D. Kamphausen

Roy D. Kamphausen is Special Advisor to the President and Senior Fellow for Chinese Security at NBR.

Mr. Kamphausen joined NBR in 2004 and served as President from July 2019–June 2024. He was formerly Senior Vice President for Research, providing executive leadership to NBR’s policy research agenda and directing engagement with the administration, U.S. Congress, and foreign embassies in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Kamphausen has led and contributed substantively to NBR’s research initiatives in numerous ways over his career. He is the author, contributing author, or co-editor of numerous publications, including chapters in NBR’s Strategic Asia series; thirteen volumes in the Carlisle People’s Liberation Army Conference series, and an NBR Special Report on innovation in India (2015). As Chief of Staff of the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property (IP Commission), Mr. Kamphausen directed the IP Commission’s Report on the Theft of American Intellectual Property (2013), Update to the IP Commission Report (2017), and IP Commission 2019 Review.

An internationally recognized expert on Indo-Pacific regional security issues, U.S.-China strategic competition, and China’s People’s Liberation Army, he has presented on these topics in more than two dozen countries across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East to government and corporate decision-makers. He is regularly called on to advise Members of Congress and leaders in the U.S. national security policymaking community.

Mr. Kamphausen is frequently cited in U.S. and international media, including CNN, the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, National Public Radio, Newsweek, the New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Epoch Times, and South China Morning Post.

Prior to joining NBR, Mr. Kamphausen was a career U.S. Army officer, with key positions as a political-military strategist, including assignments as China policy director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, China strategist for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as a military attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

Mr. Kamphausen holds a BA in Political Science from Wheaton College and an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University. He studied Chinese at both the Defense Language Institute and Beijing’s Capital Normal University. He is a Senior Advisor to the Office of Global Affairs at the University of Connecticut and is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Mr. Kamphausen served as a Commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressional policy advisory board, from 2018–2021.