https://www.racheltecott.com/home daily 1.0 2025-11-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f3e716b6df398758fad15b0/1598113284648-3XH3JVDNG7769NW7SSFJ/headshot.jpg Home - Rachel Metz Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor at George Washington University in the Political Science Department. I received my PhD in Political Science in 2021 from MIT, where I was a member of the Security Studies Program. My book project examines U.S. efforts to build militaries in partner states, centering on the advisory doctrines of the military organizations conducting the assistance. I argue that variation in advisory doctrines helps explain variation in the battlefield effectiveness of partner militaries, and that advisory doctrines are in turn driven by the core missions and bureaucratic interests of the military organizations tasked with advising. More broadly, I study international security, security cooperation, and methods for studying military operations, such as campaign analysis and wargames. Before MIT, I worked in political risk consulting and studied nuclear proliferation. I hold a BA from Wesleyan University, where I graduated Phi Beta Kappa. https://www.racheltecott.com/read-me daily 0.75 2024-12-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f3e716b6df398758fad15b0/1598033989676-6KE6GY82ZPD6QAOSG21W/20161206_dd-cw-comp-017.jpg RESEARCH - Methods for Studying Military Operations Understanding military operations is fundamental to understanding international relations. However, there is little methodological guidance available to scholars interested in studying military operations and leveraging analysis to inform international relations theory and practice. In an International Security article, Andrew Halterman and I address this omission, defining the method of campaign analysis for the study of military operations. We distinguish campaign analysis from the wider world of operations research and from related methods of military science such as net assessment, provide guidance for scholars interested in conducting campaign analysis, propose two methodological advancements, and illustrate the value of the method for theory and policy. Applying our approach, we replicate and extend Barry Posen’s 1991 analysis of NATO’s prospects for thwarting a Warsaw Pact armored breakthrough, and Wu Riqiang’s 2020 analysis of Chinese nuclear survivability. Beyond campaign analysis, I am interested in harnessing tabletop exercises, wargames, and modeling and simulations to study the development of military plans and decision-making in war, with special attention to emerging technologies. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f3e716b6df398758fad15b0/68beca6d-7020-405c-a26c-6ae162352840/kadena.jpg RESEARCH - Security Cooperation Security assistance (the subject of my current book project) is just one facet of security cooperation. In other research, I examine other ways in which states help each other fight. In one project, I investigate how contingency access— state decisions to let other states fight wars from inside their borders— affects the military power of coalitions. Although contingency access has been overlooked in alliance politics and coalitions literatures focused exclusively on the pooling of military forces, contingency access has contributed more to coalition military power than force contributions, and by a wide margin. In another project, I turn contingency access into the dependent variable, investigating the drivers of state decisions to grant, restrict, or deny access. https://www.racheltecott.com/publications daily 0.75 2025-11-24 https://www.racheltecott.com/teaching-and-advising daily 0.75 2020-10-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f3e716b6df398758fad15b0/1598108352760-6UHSR23C5I8YRPQZAGS8/FSF+panel.JPG POLICY ENGAGEMENT - Co-Founder, Future Strategy Forum I co-founded and collaborate with sponsors and a graduate student team to organize the Future Strategy Forum (FSF), an initiative that aims to amplify the voices of diverse women in the field of international security, bridge the academic-policy divide, and create mentorship opportunities and community for junior scholars. The centerpiece of FSF is a yearly conference made possible with support from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Henry A. Kissinger Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). This year’s conference focused on the implications of Covid-19 for the U.S. military, grand strategy, and democracy and governance. FSF’s student cohort collaborated with Bridging the Gap and Chatham House’s International Affairs to produce the “Pandemic Politics” series. Follow @FSFConference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f3e716b6df398758fad15b0/1598554300658-I0TCS997PRM9WJQ51VTQ/Pabrade+crop.jpeg POLICY ENGAGEMENT Visited the Urban Warfare training facility in Pabradė, Lithuania to inform an evaluation of security cooperation in the Baltics. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f3e716b6df398758fad15b0/1598213900258-RSQHG9NQFRCJKRL1MDMJ/1d7a462d-e4b0-4a1d-b912-25825eb604a6.1.jpg POLICY ENGAGEMENT Conducted a tabletop exercise (TTX) at the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom) to inform a study of NATO alliance cohesion in an ambiguous Article V scenario. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f3e716b6df398758fad15b0/1598214247814-CEDL6K5O04227QRIXKDP/me+walid+kurd_redacted.JPG POLICY ENGAGEMENT Conducted interviews with Iraqi general officers in Jordan and Iraq to inform a study of the Iraqi Army (faces covered for anonymity) https://www.racheltecott.com/pagecv daily 0.75 2025-11-24 https://www.racheltecott.com/teaching daily 0.75 2024-06-12