Brian L. Steed is a retired US Army lieutenant colonel with more than thirty years of civilian and uniformed experience in artillery, armor, cavalry (reconnaissance and security), international engagement, and professional military education. He is a practitioner, student, and writer of military theory, Middle East culture, and history. His goal is to communicate the importance of non-kinetic aspects of counterterrorism, defeating violent extremism, irregular warfare, large-scale conflict mediation, and peace building.
Brian's current assignment as a civilian is also his last U.S. Army assignment; he is an assistant professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College where he was the 2018 military educator of the year. He is also a senior fellow at Narrative Strategies. As an Army officer, he was a Middle East foreign area officer, which included eight and a half consecutive years living and working in the Middle East, to include assignments in the Levant (Jordan and Israel), Mesopotamia (Iraq), and the Arabian Peninsula (United Arab Emirates). He served in the Jordanian Army as a battalion executive officer for two and a half years as part of the Military Personnel Exchange Program. This experience gave him an immersed perspective of Arab culture. As a liaison to the Israel Defense Force, he enjoyed another immersed experience from a different regional perspective. His Iraq service included a one-month assignment in 2005, a full year in 2010-2011, and a three-month assignment from December 2014 - March 2015. Brian has written and edited numerous books, articles, and papers on military theory, military history, and cultural awareness. His most recent works include ISIS: An Introduction and Guide to the Islamic State (author), Voices of the Iraq War: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life (Voices of an Era) (editor), Iraq War: The Essential Reference Guide (editor), and ISIS: The Essential Reference Guide (editor) which will be released on October 31, 2019. All were published by ABC-CLIO.
Since returning from Iraq in March 2015, Brian has been an internationally acclaimed and much sought-after speaker on several topics including "Understanding ISIS in their Cultural and Historical Context", a theory for successfully engaging in 21st century conflict that he calls "Maneuver in the Narrative Space," a theory of cross-cultural competency that he calls "Bees and Spiders".
Brian is also a PhD student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC).