Major Fellowship Activities: Sharp focused on the Iraq War, Congress, defense budget, and nuclear weapons issues. He founded and was the sole contributor to the Iraq Insider blog, writing nearly 200 posts and attracting over 10,000 page views during his fellowship. He published letters on Iraq in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times and helped draft a letter on unsecured fissile material for the New York Times. Sharp’s research on limiting American troop deployments was cited indirectly in a New York Times editorial and directly in a Salt Lake Tribune editorial. His research article “The Audacity of Rearmament: Complex 2030” was published in Foreign Policy in Focus and syndicated in Asia Times Online and Alternatives International. His research article “Moving the Chains: Congress and the War in Iraq” was published in Foreign Policy in Focus. His op-ed “Perspectives: Bloodshed in Iraq” was published in the International Relations and Security Network. His op-ed “No More New Nukes, Please” was published in the Topeka Capital-Journal and syndicated in Counterpunch and Alarab Online. His op-ed with Lt. Gen. Robert Gard “The Flawed Surge” was published in Madrid11.net and syndicated in Middle East Online and Common Dreams.
Sharp wrote a number of analyses for his organization’s website, including: “Analysis of House Strategic Forces Subcommittee Markup: FY2008 Defense Authorization (H.R. 1585),” “Iran and Congress,” “The Folly of New Nukes,” “Risky Business: Why Attacking Iran Is a Bad Idea,” “GOP Senators Voted To Limit Troops in 1990s,” “Analysis of New Iraq Legislation in House and Senate,” “The New Warner Resolution vs. The Old Warner Resolution,” “Troop Surge in Iraq: Just Another Escalation,” “Beyond the Executive Summary,” and “Baker-Hamilton May Be The Catalyst For Change In Iraq.”
Sharp was quoted in a One World news article on Reliable Replacement Warhead that was later syndicated in Common Dreams and Antiwar.com. He was interviewed on War News Radio about the Iraq Parliament’s progress on benchmarks. He was involved in the formation of the Progressive Foreign Policy Breakfast group, served as rapporteur, and was commissioned to write a commentary piece summarizing the group’s findings. He served as primary editor for the “2007 National Security Briefing Book,” a 65-page resource organized by 13 peace and security organizations. He moderated a panel on nuclear weapons and Congress at the 2007 Think Outside the Bomb conference and attended the 2007 Carnegie Junior Fellows Conference and the fall 2006 Peace and Security Initiative conference.
Current Activities: Sharp is a Research Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He directs the budget program and works to educate and inform policymakers, senior leaders, and the general public about the defense budget and issues pertaining to resourcing national security. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in Security Studies at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. His current research projects explore military engagement between great power rivals (dissertation), cyber security, and defense strategy and spending. He is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Modern War Institute at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He is also a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve, where he served as a deputy department head in his unit’s administration department (N1). In 2015-2016, he was awarded an M.A. in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School en route to his Ph.D. He received the American Seapower Stipend from the Hudson Center for American Seapower (2015); a Research Program Fellowship from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (2016); and a Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leadership Fellowship from the Tokyo Foundation (2016). These awards will all support his research. In 2015-2016, Sharp completed his second year as Director of the Strategic Education Initiative at Princeton’s Center for International Security Studies (CISS), Princeton’s home for student programming related to international peace and security.
He completed his MPA in International Relations at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University in 2014 where he focused on security studies, which included coursework and research on military effectiveness, grand strategy, Asia security, defense technology, and domestic influences on foreign and defense policy. He served as an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for a New American Security where he focused on U.S. defense strategy and spending; he regularly published major reports, comments in the press, and briefed senior policymakers. In 2013-2014, he was awarded a Harold W. Rosenthal Fellowship in International Relations, which he used to work in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy during summer 2013; was selected to participate in the Manfred Worner Seminar in Germany organized by the German Marshall Fund and the German Armed Forces; was selected to participate in the Japan Travel Program for U.S. Future Leaders organized by the Japan Foundation; and received Princeton’s John Parker Compton Memorial Fellowship in International Relations.
Prior to entering graduate school he was the 2011-2012 Bacevich Fellow at the Center for a New American Security where he had more management and leadership responsibilities, including representing the organization at public and private events. He was nominated to attend young global leadership forums in Israel (by the American Israel Education Foundation) and India (by the Observer Research Foundation). He was previously a research associate at CNAS where he focused on defense budgets, weapons procurement, nuclear weapons policy, cybersecurity, and related issues. From the conclusion of his fellowship through December 2009 he was the Communications Director and Military Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and Council for a Livable World where he directed print, TV, and radio communications strategy and performs policy work on national security spending, military policy, and Iraq.