Jim Lamson is a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies and is based in Maine, USA. Jim worked for 23 years as an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency, focusing on Iranian weapons and military issues, and served for more than five years in the Middle East. Before that, he worked on nonproliferation issues at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, the Conference on Disarmament, International Atomic Energy Agency, and U.S. Department of State. Since 2021, he has worked as a non-resident Senior Research Associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Jim holds an MS in National Security and Resource Strategy (and certificate in Supply Chain Management) from the U.S. National Defense University, an MA in International Policy Studies from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and a BA from Middlebury College.

Research Interests

• Iran’s intentions, capabilities, and activities in missiles and drones, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and space
• Iranian military and weapons adaptation and innovation
• Iran’s aerospace and defense industries
• Iran’s military strategy and its threat and use of force
• Role and limits of intelligence in nonproliferation and arms control
• Open-source research and analysis

Selected Publications

• The Pendulum Swings Back: Envisioning the Future Trajectory of an Increasingly Asymmetric Iran-Russia Defense Relationship (with Hanna Notte), Occasional Paper, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (2025)
• "Revisiting the Implications of Iran’s Long-Range Weapons Capabilities," War on the Rocks (2025)
• Iran-Russia Defense Cooperation: Current Realities and Future Horizons (with Hanna Notte), Occasional Paper, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (2024)
• "In Brief: How Are Iranian Weapons Affecting the War in Ukraine?" (with Nicole Grajewski, Hamidreza Azizi, and Nakissa Jahanbani), War on the Rocks (2024)
• "The Uncomfortable Reality of Russia and Iran’s New Defense Relationship," (with Hanna Notte) War on the Rocks (2024)
• "Chabahar Shuffle," (with Dave Schmerler) Arms Control Wonk (2024)
• "Rewind and Reconnoiter: Iranian President Raisi’s Renewed Emphasis on Space Is Likely to Create New Tensions, with Jim Lamson," War on the Rocks (2024)
• "Rewind and Reconnoiter: Iran's Precision Strike Capabilities with Jim Lamson," War on the Rocks (2024)
• “The Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988,” “Threats and Opportunities Faced by Iran, 2001-2003,” “Iranian Long-Range Strikes Against State Adversaries, 2019-2023,” and “Identifying and Assessing Iran’s Patterns, Drivers, and Constraints Across Cases,” in Strategic Empathy: Examining Pattern Breaks to Better Understand Adversaries’ Acquisition, Threat, and Use of Strategic Weapons, Occasional Paper, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (2023)
• "To Geostationary Orbit and Beyond? Assessing Iran’s Space Launch Goals and Efforts," (with John Krzyzaniak), Arms Control Wonk (2022)
• "New Missiles, New Risks: The Escalatory Implications of Iran's Precision-Strike Weapons," War on the Rocks (2022)
• "Iranian President Raisi's Renewed Emphasis on Space is Likely to Create New Tensions," (with Jeffrey Lewis) War on the Rocks (2021)