Photo of Oriana Skylar Mastro

Oriana Skylar Mastro, PhD

  • Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall
Stanford,  CA  94305-6055

Biography

Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, nuclear dynamics, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve, for which she works as a strategic planner at INDOPACOM.

She has received numerous awards for her military service and contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, including the 2020 and 2018 Meritorious Service Medal, the 2017 Air Force recognition Ribbon, and the 2016 Individual Reservist of the Year Award. She has won a number of other prestigious awards, including the 2016-2017 Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowship at the Council of Foreign Relations.

She has published widely, including in International Security, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, International Studies Review, Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, Survival, and Asian Security. Her book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019), won the 2020 American Political Science Association International Security Section Best Book by an Untenured Faculty Member.

Prior to her appointment at Stanford in August 2020, Mastro was an assistant professor of security studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.

Her publications and commentary can be found at orianaskylarmastro.com and on Twitter @osmastro.

publications

Journal Articles
January 2021

Teach What You Preach: A Comprehensive Guide to the Policy Memo as a Methods Teaching Tool

Author(s)
Teach What You Preach: A Comprehensive Guide to the Policy Memo as a Methods Teaching Tool
Journal Articles
December 2020

The PLA’s Evolving Role in China’s South China Sea Strategy

Author(s)
The PLA’s Evolving Role in China’s South China Sea Strategy

Current research

In The News

President Sauli Niinistö of Finland participates in a panel of Finnish and Stanford scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
News

President Sauli Niinistö of Finland Discusses Security Cooperation and Defense with FSI Scholars

As the war in Ukraine continues to reshape security needs in Europe and globally, scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute agree that Finland can play a unique leadership role in defense and cybersecurity alliances.
President Sauli Niinistö of Finland Discusses Security Cooperation and Defense with FSI Scholars
The flag of Taiwan flies over a military monunment in Kinmen, Taiwan.
Commentary

Understanding the Stakes in Taiwan

Larry Diamond and Oriana Skylar Mastro join Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast to discuss China’s ambitions against Taiwan, and how the U.S. and its allies can deter Beijing.
Understanding the Stakes in Taiwan
Chinese military propaganda depicting the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958.
News

Reassessing China’s Capabilities and Goals for Strategic Competition

On the World Class podcast, Oriana Skylar Mastro argues that in order to set effective policy toward China, the United States needs to better understand how and why China is projecting power.
Reassessing China’s Capabilities and Goals for Strategic Competition

Selected Multimedia

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