Andrew Exum is an American scholar of the Middle East and a Fellow of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). He also participated in General Stanley McChrystal's review of the American strategy in Afghanistan.
After graduating from The McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tennessee (1996) and the University of Pennsylvania (2000), where he was a columnist for the Daily Pennsylvanian, Exum, a US Army officer, led a platoon of light infantry in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks and subsequently led a platoon of Army Rangers as a part of special operations task forces in Kuwait and Afghanistan with the rank of Captain. For Some Soldiers The War Never Ends - New York Times He is a veteran of Operation Anaconda. He earned a Master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut. In 2006-2007, Exum was a Soref fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is pursuing his doctorate in the Department of War Studies, King's College London. » Andrew Exum Middle East Strategy at Harvard
Blake Hounshell of Foreign Policy calls Exum, “one of the sharpest Middle East analysts around.” What you need to know about Lebanon's latest car bomb | FP Passport
While still on active duty, but “laid up with a non-combat knee injury,” Exum wrote his first book, This Man's Army: A Soldier's Story from the Front Lines of the War on Terrorism. Gazette | Interview: Andrew Exum
On May 30, 2008, Exum revealed himself to be the founder of the blog Abu Muqawama (Arabic, ??????????? for "father or expert of the Resistance"). This blog, "dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies," was followed by many notable students and practitioners of counterinsurgency in the military, academia and the media. It has also been referred to as Small Wars Journal's "rogue cousin" partially due to the large overlap in topics and participants, and due to its ability to initiate discussion about topics that are not yet appropriate for the more professional forum. At the time of the revelation, Exum also announced he was leaving the blog to pursue his research. abu muqawama: Thank You, and Goodbye Partly due to the unexpected perceived value generated by such an unofficial forum, Exum subsequently returned to the blog and continues to post under the pseudonym Abu Muqawama. The blog is now hosted by CNAS.