Professional Affiliation

Research Professor of International Affairs and Acting Director of the 
Foreign Area Officers Program, George Washington University

Expert Bio

Dr. Amy Austin Holmes is Research Professor of International Affairs and Acting Director of the Foreign Area Officers Program at George Washington University. Dr. Holmes has published widely on the global American military posture, the NATO alliance, non-state actors, revolutions, military coups, and de-facto states. With more than 15 years global experience conducting research in the Middle East and Europe, including various conflict zones, she is a noted expert on issues of American foreign policy and international security. She has held Visiting Scholar positions at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, the Weatherhead Center also at Harvard University, and at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Dr. Holmes is the author of three books and more than 50 articles. In addition to her academic career, Dr. Holmes served as an advisor at the U.S. Department of State through a Council on Foreign Relations fellowship, where she first worked in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, focused on Iraq and Syria.  She then also served on the Turkey Desk in the Office of Southern European Affairs, which covers Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, and Malta. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she also served as a volunteer lecturer at the Kyiv School of Economics during the summer of 2023, where she taught a course on Global Disinformation.

Wilson Center Project

• Mass Displacement in Syria and the Role of Turkey: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?
• Between Democratic Autonomy and Authoritarianism: The Political Ambitions of PYD-aligned Kurdish Militias in Syria and Iraq
• After the Caliphate: Governance Challenges in the Semi-Autonomous Region of Northeast Syria

Project Summary

While at the Wilson Center, Dr. Holmes will be writing a series of articles on the emergence of Kurdish and Yezidi militias in northern Syria and the Sinjar mountain region of Iraq in response to the Islamic State. She will also be completing a book manuscript with the working title "From Revolution to Coup: Mass Risings and the Egyptian Military from Mubarak to Sisi." Finally, she is overseeing a research project on the crackdown on civil society in Egypt.

 

Major Publications

Select Publications for Bio – Amy Austin Holmes

Book

Social Unrest and American Military Bases in Turkey and Germany since 1945, Cambridge University Press, 2014; paperback released in 2016

·         Featured in a Review Essay in Perspectives on Politics, Vol 15, No 1, March 2017

·         Reviewed in International Journal of Comparative Sociology, July 2016

Peer-Reviewed Articles

“Working on the Revolution in Bahrain: From The Mass Strike to Everyday Forms of Medical Provision” Social Movement Studies, July 2015

A Region of Resistance: Mass Protests in Egypt and Turkey (editor), South Atlantic Quarterly, 113:2, Duke University Press, spring 2014

“On Military Coups and Mad Utopias”, in: A Region of Resistance, South Atlantic Quarterly, 113:2, Duke University Press, spring 2014

“The Base that replaced the British Empire: De-Democratization and the US Navy in Bahrain”, Journal of Arabian Studies June 2014

“There are weeks when Decades happen: Structure and Strategy in the Egyptian Revolution” Mobilization, 17(4), December 2012, p 391-410

Articles, Edited Volumes, and Book Chapters

“Egypt’s Nubia: Drowning by Government Decree” Real Clear World, September 27, 2017

“Tightening the Noose on Egypt’s Civil Society” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sada Middle East Analysis, June 1, 2017

“The Attack on Civil Society outside Cairo” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sada Middle East Analysis, January 26, 2017

“Sisi’s US Army War College Thesis: 10 Years Later”, op-ed in Mada Masr, March 15, 2016

“Egypt’s Protests by the Numbers”, co-authored with Hussein Baoumi, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sada Middle East Analysis, January 29, 2016

“What are the Kurdish Women’s Units Fighting For?” Washington Post, December 23, 2015

“As Kobane comes under ISIL attack, Kurds encircle, cut off caliphate”, Informed Comment June 26, 2015

“What the Battle for Kobane says about U.S. overseas military bases” Washington Post, February 2, 2015

“Why Egypt’s Military Orchestrated a Massacre” Washington Post, August 22, 2014

“In Egypt, Industrial Scale Death Decrees”, op-ed in Providence Journal, May 5, 2014

“The Military Intervention that the World Forgot: Saudi and Emirati Forces continue to police Bahrain”, op-ed on Al Jazeera, March 27, 2014

“Before the Bloodletting: A Tour of the Rabaa Sit-in”, Cairo Review of Global Affairs, August 16, 2013

“Everywhere is Taksim: The Crackdown on the Commons”, Counterpunch, June 26, 2013

“The Royals’ New Rules: Backsliding in Bahrain”, Cairo Review of Global Affairs, February 27, 2013; Re-posted on Jadaliyya in slightly revised form on March 5, 2013

“Egyptians blame military for failures of transition period”, Ahram Online, June 28, 2012

“Is US Support for the SCAF Unconditional?” Atlantic Council, November 25, 2011

“The real force of stability in Egypt is its people, not its government” op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, February 8 2011 (written under a pen name)