Non-Resident Fellow
Areas of Interest
David McIntosh focuses on the prospects of, preparations for, and risks associated with military conflict in the Western Pacific.
Background
David began his career in environmental policy. He started as a litigator at the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2001 and then worked in the U.S. Government, first as Legislative Counsel to Senator Joseph Lieberman and then as Associate Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in President Obama’s first term.
From 2011 to 2021, David worked in corporate government affairs, first at Siemens and then at Apple, where he served as a headquarters-based troubleshooter of Chinese regulatory problems. Over the course of forty-five work trips to China, David decided to make understanding the risk and implications of war with that nation his full-time pursuit.
Education
David concentrated in U.S. Cold War foreign policy at Harvard College, where he wrote and published a thesis on relations between the Eisenhower Administration and the governments of Costa Rica, Lebanon, and Austria.
After a year in Berlin working for Amnesty International, David attended Harvard Law School, where he used a grant from the Hewlett Foundation to write and publish an article about the negotiations that had led to the 1995 Dayton Accords.
In May 2023, David received an M.A. in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His master’s thesis was entitled “Australia and the New Era of Nuclear Risk.”
CNS Work
- Content forthcoming
