Education
- Ph.D. Islamic, Middle Eastern, & African Studies, 2019, McGill University
- M.A. Near Eastern Studies, 2010, Indiana University - Bloomington
- B.A. History and Religious Studies, 2006, George Mason University
Biography
Dr. Christopher Anzalone is assistant professor of security studies at the Command and Staff College and an Adjunct Professor at George Mason University. Previously he was a Research Fellow with the International Security Program at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a postdoctoral scholar and visiting assistant professor at George Mason University. He has taught courses and published on security studies, irregular warfare, proxy war, Middle Eastern and African studies, Islamist movements, and the media operations of violent non-state actors.
Selected Publications
- Islamizing Rebel Governance: Jihadi Insurgencies and Symbolic Power (book project)
- “More Than a Proxy: Complicating Houthi Pathways to Escalation,” MCU Insights, vol. 17, issue 2 (2026).
- “Framing Insurgency and the Rebel Proto-State: Al-Shabaab’s Media and Information Operations,” The Journal of the Middle East and Africa (2021).
- “In the Shadow of the Islamic State: Shiʿi Responses to Sunni Jihadist Narratives in a Turbulent Middle East,” in Jihadism Transformed: Al-Qaeda and Islamic State’s Global Battle of Ideas (Oxford University Press, 2016).
- “From Dirʿiyya to Riyadh: The History and Global Impact of Saudi Religious Propagation and Education,” in Wahhabism and the World: Understanding Saudi Arabia’s Global Influence on Islam (Oxford University Press, 2022).
- “Addressing the Enemy: Al-Shabaab’s PSYOPS Media Warfare,” CTC Sentinel (2020).
- “The Saga of Mukhtar Robow and Somalia’s Fractious Politics,” War on the Rocks (2019).
- “Propaganda,” in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, edited by Gerhard Bowering, Patricia Crone, Wadad Kadi, Devin J. Stewart, Muhammad Qasim Zaman, and Mahan Mirza (Princeton University Press, 2012).