Bio
John Spencer is an award-winning scholar and internationally recognized national security and military analyst, specializing in war, strategy, tactics, and related subjects. Considered one of the world’s leading experts 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 and Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project.
He is the host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast, now in its sixth year, which explores every dimension of urban combat through in-depth conversations with commanders of major battles, technical experts, veterans, and scholars. Covering topics from tunnel warfare and megacity operations to civilian harm mitigation, laws of war, and tactical innovation, the podcast has become a leading platform for advancing understanding of urban warfare in the modern era.
He is the Chair of War Studies at the Madison Policy Forum, a New York based think-tank.
He is the co-founder and executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to advancing the study of urban environments, urban operations, and urban warfare.
He is a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare.
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 where he was instrumental in the design and formation of the institute. While teaching at West Point, he received the West Point Apgar Award for Excellence in Teaching.
After active duty, Spencer served 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 instructed 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.
His research spans the strategic to tactical levels of war, with a particular focus on military operations in dense urban and subterranean environments. It includes cutting-edge fieldwork in ongoing and recently concluded conflicts, from Nagorno-Karabakh and India to Ukraine, Israel, and 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). In February 2022, he wrote The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender as a guide for Ukrainian civilians on how to defend their cities during the Russian invasion. The manual was translated into Ukrainian and rapidly disseminated across the country; it has since been published in sixteen languages, with more translations in progress.
His over 180 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.
Spencer holds a Master of Policy Management from Georgetown University.
He is on X @SpencerGuard and Substack https://substack.com/@spencerguard