Stephen Van Evera is a Ford International Professor in the MIT Political Science Department. Prof. Van Evera works in several areas of international relations: the causes and prevention of war, U.S. foreign policy, U.S. security policy, U.S. intervention in the Third World, international relations of the Middle East, and international relations theory. He has published books on the causes of war and on social science methodology, including The Prudent Use of Power in American National Security Strategy (The Tobin Project, 2010) and Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Cornell, 1999). He has also published articles on American foreign policy, American defense policy, nationalism and the causes of war, the origins of World War I, and U.S. strategy in the War on Terror. He currently serves as chair of the national security committee for the Tobin Project, a catalyst for transformative research in the social sciences.