Sam Lair

@sam_lair

Fellow - National Security Program

Sam Lair is a Fellow in the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and a Research Associate on the Open-Source Intelligence Team at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. He manages and conducts investigations into nuclear and missile programs using satellite imagery, state and social media, and archival sources. Sam also writes about the relationship between domestic politics, bureaucratic politics, and missile defense technology during the Cold War. He was a member of the Nuclear Scholars Initiative Class of 2025 at the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues. Sam holds a M.A. in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California and a B.A. in History and Political Science from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.