John Spencer

John Spencer is an award-winning scholar, professor, author, combat veteran, national security and military analyst, and internationally recognized expert and advisor on urban warfare, military strategy, tactics, and other related topics. Considered one of the world’s leading expert on urban warfare, he served as an advisor to the top four-star general and other senior leaders in the U.S. Army as part of strategic research groups from the Pentagon to the United States Military Academy.

Spencer currently serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast. He also serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the Madison Policy Forum, a New York based think-tank. He is a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare.

His research, spanning over a decade, focuses on military operations in dense urban areas, megacities, urban and subterranean warfare and includes cutting-edge field research into ongoing or recently concluded wars and battles from Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, Israel, to Gaza.

He is the author of three books: Understanding Urban Warfare, (Howgate Publishing, 2022), Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War (Potomac Books, 2022; Winner of the 2023 Gold Medal Award, Best Military History Memoir, Military Writers Society of America), The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender (John Spencer, 2022).

His over 140 book chapters, case studies, and professional articles have appeared in the Time Magazine, New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LA Times, NY Daily News, Wired Magazine, Politico, The Hill, Foreign Policy Magazine, Defense One, Army Magazine, and many other publications. Spencer is also a regular military analyst and commentator for CNN, MSNBC, FOX, BBC, and numerous news and media organizations.

In February 2022, Spencer wrote a guide, The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender, for the citizens of Ukraine on how to defend their cities. The manual was translated into Ukrainian and spread widely across all of Ukraine. It is now available in sixteen separate languages with many other translations in the works.

Serving over twenty-five years in the active Army as an infantry soldier, Spencer has held ranks from Private to Sergeant First Class and Second Lieutenant to Major while serving in elite and storied military units from the 75th Ranger Regiment, 173rd Airborne, to the 4th Infantry Division. His assignments as an Army officer included two combat deployments to Iraq as both an Infantry Platoon Leader and Company Commander, a Ranger Instructor with the Army’s Ranger School, a Joint Chief of Staff and Army Staff intern, fellow with the Chief of Staff of the Army’s Strategic Studies Group, and Co-Founder, Strategic Planner, and Deputy Director of the Modern War Institute at West Point. While teaching at West Point, he received the West Point Apgar Award for Excellence in Teaching.

After active duty, Spencer serves as a Colonel in the California State Guard with assignment to the 40th Infantry Division, California Army National Guard as the Director of Urban Warfare Training where he cofounded, designed, and instructs in the world’s only course specifically designed to improve the ability of Division and Brigade commanders and staff to successfully plan, conduct, and sustain large scale urban operations.

Spencer holds a Master of Policy Management from Georgetown University.

• From his website: John Spencer