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.
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).
Brian has written and edited numerous books, articles, and papers on military theory, military history, and cultural awareness. His most recent works include ISIS: The Essential Reference Guide,Iraq War: The Essential Reference Guide, ISIS: An Introduction and Guide to the Islamic State (author), Voices of the Iraq War: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life (Voices of an Era).
Since returning from Iraq in March 2015, Brian has been an internationally acclaimed and much sought-after speaker on several topics including understanding violent non-state actors (ISIS, al-Qaeda, Taliban, etc.) in their cultural and historical context, a theory for successfully engaging in 21st century conflict that he calls "Maneuver in the Narrative Space," and a theory of cross-cultural competency that he describes in his book titled Bees and Spiders: Applied Cultural Awareness and the Art of Cross-Cultural Influence.