Michael Dennis

Dr. Michael Dennis is Associate Professor of Practice at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Previously, he was Chief of Intelligence at U.S. Army Futures Command and a member of the Intelligence Community, serving at the National Ground Intelligence Center as a Senior Intelligence Analyst. During this time, he was an Irregular Warfare Instructor for U.S. Army Special Forces at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. Throughout his tenure, he supported policymakers at the executive and congressional-level, senior decision-makers in intelligence, diplomacy and defense, and U.S. military units. In recognition of his work and impact, he was named Analyst of the Year.

Dr. Dennis is a subject matter expert on Irregular Warfare. His specific research in this field investigates the role that civilians play in insurgencies and resistance to occupation and explores how new technologies are shaping conflict dynamics and creating unique challenges for the U.S. in countering emerging threats from highly capable non-state actors, such as insurgents, terrorists, proxy forces, and transnational criminal groups and cartels, and waging Unconventional Warfare campaigns to support local resistance movements abroad.

Dr. Dennis is also a leading expert on Chechnya, the North Caucasus insurgency, and Chechen foreign fighters. During the Second Chechen War, he was a volunteer aid-worker in Chechnya and Ingushetia, Russia, and later served as Co-Director of the Chechnya Advocacy Network, an international non-governmental organization. For his doctoral, post-doctoral and independent fieldwork, he spent close to five years living in Chechen refugee camps and communities and with Chechen resistance fighters as part of an ethnographic study documenting the lived experiences of the Chechen people at war and exploring the conditions under which displaced Chechens support political violence. He returned to the field to research and interview Chechen foreign fighters participating in the wars in Syria and Ukraine. The next stage of his research investigates how the current war in Ukraine—where Chechens are fighting on both sides—is shaping political dynamics in the Chechen diaspora and driving renewed calls for independence.

Dr. Dennis earned a Ph.D. in Government from UT-Austin. He studied at Novgorod State University and Saint Petersburg State University in Russia and at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and speaks Chechen and Russian.

Prior to university, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps and deployed to Africa to support operations in Somalia and the evacuation of American personnel from Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. He spent his final year as a Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestler with the U.S. Marine Wrestling Team.