Mr. Steven Black, (Col, USAF, Ret) joined the National War College as an adjunct instructor from the Department of Energy, where he has filled several senior executive national security positions for more than two decades. Mr. Black served as Director of DOE’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence for eleven years, during which he oversaw analysis of foreign nuclear weapons and foreign scientific developments, expanded DOE’s cyber intelligence program supporting the US energy sector, directed the counterintelligence program at DOE’s national labs and HQ, and supervised the provision of technical support to other intelligence agencies. Earlier in his DOE career, he served as Chief Operating Officer for seven years in the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nonproliferation program and ran the Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation during his first SES tour. He has received several DOE and NNSA awards, including the Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award and the NNSA Gold Medal. In 2009, Mr. Black received a Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, and in 2019 he received a Distinguished Presidential Rank Award.
During his Air Force career prior to DOE, he served in several intelligence assignments in the US, Europe, and the USSR during the Cold War, and later, at US Space Command and in the Pentagon. In Germany, Mr. Black analyzed Soviet fighter tactics and evolving Russian plans for operational-level ground maneuver and supporting fires. He later conducted on-site arms control inspections throughout the Soviet Union and served as an Assistant Air Attaché and Operations Officer in the Defense Attaché’s Office in Moscow during the final two years of the USSR. Long interested in the role of technology in national security, Mr. Black focused his studies during a National Defense Fellowship on cyber effects and information operations. He later served on the Joint Staff, providing intelligence support to the J-5’s interagency activities. Mr. Black served his final Air Force tour in the White House, where he coordinated policy analysis and execution on a wide range of national security issues with a technology component.
Mr. Black studied Russian and political science at the University of Michigan, earned an MA in National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, and continued his Russian language training at the Defense Language Institute and at the Foreign Language Training Center in Munich.
Functional Expertise: Intelligence analysis and collection, critical thinking, nuclear weapons, energy security, cyber and supply chain threats to the energy sector, US interagency process, the role of technology in national security
Regional Expertise: Russia, China