Nathan “Nate” Freier

Nathan “Nate” Freier is an innovative leader, strategist, and net and risk assessment professional. Nate is currently a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a non-resident Senior Research Associate at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), and a national security and defense researcher at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA).

Nate returned to national security research and analysis after serving as the inaugural director of the Campaign Decision Support Team (CDST) in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) from May 2023 to August 2024. As CDST Director, Nate and his team were responsible for providing the Department’s most senior leadership with guidance- and decision-ready assessments and insights on the Department’s performance in great power rivalry.

Immediately prior to serving as CDST Director, Nate was a Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense (DSD) from January 2022 to May 2023. In that capacity, he was the DSD’s resident expert on enterprise-level campaigning against rivals and military concept development. Nate came to the DSD’s office from the United States Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) where he was an Associate Professor of National Security Studies. Prior to service with SSI, Nate was a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and a Visiting Research Professor at the Army’s Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI).

Nate began his career as a civilian defense and national security professional after completing a 20-year military career as an Army field artillery officer and strategist. While in uniform, Nate served in both the Persian Gulf and Iraq Wars and was instrumental in numerous high profile strategy development and strategic planning efforts at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of the Army, Multi-National Force—Iraq, and Multi-National Corps—Iraq. This included primary responsibility, along with a small team of defense strategists, for development of the 2005 National Defense Strategy.

As a leader, strategist, and researcher, Nate’s areas of expertise include enterprise-level national security decision-making, defense and military strategy development, strategic planning, net and risk assessment, strategic forecasting, and international security futures. Nate is widely published, with his most recent public work focused on U.S. Indo-Pacific defense and military strategy, pacing threats to homeland security, gray zone challenges, risk, and great power “hypercompetition.”

Nate originally hails from Red Wing, Minnesota. He holds a bachelor’s degree in government from St. John’s University (MN) and master’s degrees in international relations and world politics from Troy State University and The Catholic University of America respectively.