Scott A. Smitson is a strategist, global futures forecaster, political scientist and educator. Smitson is the founder and chief strategy officer of Geopolitics Inc., which advises investors and private sector decision-makers in multiple industries in understanding the impact of geopolitics on the risks and opportunities in foreign and domestic markets.
Smitson previously directed all geopolitical risk analysis for Lykeion, providing analysis and assessments for clients on issues at the interface of finance, macroeconomics and geopolitics. He is a retired U.S. Army Officer, serving over 21 years on active duty in both combat arms and as an Army strategist. As a strategist, he led multidisciplinary groups and facilitated senior leader decision-making by assessing, developing and articulating policy, strategy and plans at the national and international levels, all while integrating U.S. instruments of power, most especially defense, diplomacy and development. His military career culminated in his assignment as the strategy chief at U.S. Southern Command, where he served as the principal strategic advisor to the four-star commander on matters directly impacting current operations and mid- to long-term national policy and strategy for U.S. military activity and operations across Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Smitson has also advised U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) on issues related to geostrategy and geoeconomics and was the founding director of SOCOM’s Center for Adaptative Innovative Statecraft, representing SOCOM at the 2022 NATO Summit.
In addition to a tour at the Pentagon as part of the Joint Staff, Smitson was a member of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander’s Action Group, where he served as a strategic advisor on Middle East Affairs for the previous CENTCOM Commander (previous Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III). Smitson developed the military assurance options to Gulf Cooperative Council partners in support of the State Department-led P5+1 Iran nuclear program negotiations, as well as the development of the counter-ISIS strategy and military campaign plan. He is a decorated combat veteran, with operational experiences in support of Operations Southern Watch and Iraqi Freedom, service as the UN commander’s representative for armistice issues in the Korean DMZ, and Company Command in 2nd Infantry Division. From 2013-2014, he was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, where he served as a U.S.-U.K. strategic planner in the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense.
Smitson is the professor of practice of grand strategy and the director of the Grand Strategy Program at Denison University, is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Global and National Security Institute (GNSI) at the University of South Florida and was a Chamberlain Fellow and visiting professor of political science at Amherst College. Smitson has served as an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy and has held adjunct professorships at Georgetown University, Florida International University, University of Miami and with the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University.
Smitson earned a joint PhD in Political Science and Public Policy from Indiana University’s School of Environmental and Public Affairs as well as an MA in Political Science. He was a Distinguished Military Graduate at The Ohio State University. His publications include “The Road to Good Intentions: British Nation-Building in Aden,” “An American in Her Majesty’s Ministry of Defence,” “Solving America’s Gray-Zone Puzzle,” “The Compound Security Dilemma: Threats at the Nexus of War and Peace,” and “Appraising the Pathologies of American Grand Strategy.”