About

Dr. Philip Potter is the executive director of the National Security Data and Policy Institute (NSDPI), the University of Virginia’s sixth university-level institute. A professor of public policy and the founding director of the Frank Batten School's National Security Policy Center, Dr. Potter’s decades of research have focused on US foreign policy, military affairs, data analysis, and international security. He has published dozens of articles, policy papers, and government reports on these topics as well as two books, and serves as a university expert for the Intelligence Community and a senior advisor in the Department of Defense. An active voice in both academia and government on national security research and policy, Professor Potter launched the NSDPI to build collaborative networks of experts and practitioners across government, industry, and academia to address the country’s most pressing national security challenges.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Law and economics
• Social Science
• Law
• Sociology
• Economics
• Internet privacy
• Market economy
• Political economy
• Public relations
• International trade

Selected publications

• Triangulating Friction Points in the Fentanyl Supply Chain

  SocArXiv (OSF Preprints) · 2026-04-21

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  After more than a decade and billions of dollars spent combatting the worst opioid crisis in US history, the CDC documented a striking decline in fentanyl- related mortality beginning in May 2023. What drove this decline? We synthesize three sources of data – global shipping records, fentanyl seizures, and overdose deaths – to serve as empirical signals through which we gain visibility into critical links in the supply chain. This framework allows us to triangulate where in the supply chain the disruption originated. Our analysis indicates that the decline in overdose deaths stemmed in substantial part from enforcement operations that destabilized Mexican cartels’ production and trafficking networks, alongside any effects of precursor controls, domestic enforcement, and harm-reduction efforts.

  Publisher

• Triangulating Friction Points in the Fentanyl Supply Chain

  2026-04-23

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  After more than a decade and billions of dollars spent combatting the worst opioid crisis in US history, the CDC documented a striking decline in fentanyl- related mortality beginning in May 2023. What drove this decline? We synthesize three sources of data – global shipping records, fentanyl seizures, and overdose deaths – to serve as empirical signals through which we gain visibility into critical links in the supply chain. This framework allows us to triangulate where in the supply chain the disruption originated. Our analysis indicates that the decline in overdose deaths stemmed in substantial part from enforcement operations that destabilized Mexican cartels’ production and trafficking networks, alongside any effects of precursor controls, domestic enforcement, and harm-reduction efforts.

  PublisherDOI

• Terrorism

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2023-07-06

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Written for undergraduate students studying the politics of conflict and cooperation, Understanding War and Peace considers the roots of global conflicts and the various means used to resolve them. Edited by Dan Reiter with contributing authors who are all leading scholars in the field, it balances approachable, engaging writing with a conceptually rigorous overview of the most important ideas in conflict studies. Focusing on concepts, policy, and historical applications, the text minimizes literature reviews and technical jargon to engagingly present all major topics in international conflict, including nuclear weapons, peacekeeping, terrorism, gender, alliances, nuclear weapons, environment and conflict, civil wars, public opinion. Enriching the textbook pedagogy, each chapter concludes with a summary of a published quantitative study to introduce students with no prior quantitative training to quantitative analysis. Online resources for instructors include an instructor manual, a test bank and contemporary case studies for each chapter topic regarding the conflict in Ukraine.

  PublisherDOI

• The Strategic Logic of Large Militant Alliance Networks

  Journal of Global Security Studies · 2022-12-19 · 9 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Ideological and operational credibility are essential to the success of transnational terrorist organizations. We demonstrate that militant groups can leverage large alliance networks to bolster their ideological and operational reputations. Organizations can draw on operational capabilities and successes to build international networks that bolster their ideological credibility. Conversely, organizations with reputations for ideological authority can lend it to affiliates, who offer reach into active conflicts, bolstering claims to operational capacity. This logic of comparative advantage suggests that militant alliances can be a strategic response to underlying material or ideological deficits. We illustrate these dynamics through data-driven case studies of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State's cooperative networks.

  PublisherDOI

• The Strategic Logic of Large Militant Alliance Networks

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Index

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2022-12-01

  paratext1st authorCorresponding

  A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

  PublisherDOI

• Zero Tolerance

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2022-12-01 · 2 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  China's mistreatment of its Uyghur minority has drawn international condemnation and sanctions. The repression gripping Xinjiang is also hugely costly to China in Renminbi, personnel, and stifled economic productivity. Despite this, the Chinese Communist Party persists in its policies. Why? Drawing on extensive original data, Potter and Wang demonstrate insecurities about the stability of the regime and its claim to legitimacy motivate Chinese policies. These perceived threats to core interests drive the ferocity of the official response to Uyghur nationalism. The result is harsh repression, sophisticated media control, and selective international military cooperation. China's growing economic and military power means that the country's policies in Xinjiang and Central Asia have global implications. Zero Tolerance sheds light on this problem, informing policymakers, scholars, and students about an emerging global hotspot destined to play a central role in international politics in years to come.

  PublisherDOI

• Honor Among Thieves: Understanding Rhetorical and Material Cooperation Among Violent Nonstate Actors

  International Organization · 2021 · 37 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Abstract Cooperation among militant organizations contributes to capability but also presents security risks. This is particularly the case when organizations face substantial repression from the state. As a consequence, for cooperation to emerge and persist when it is most valuable, militant groups must have means of committing to cooperation even when the incentives to defect are high. We posit that shared ideology plays this role by providing community monitoring, authority structures, trust, and transnational networks. We test this theory using new, expansive, time-series data on relationships between militant organizations from 1950 to 2016, which we introduce here. We find that when groups share an ideology, and especially a religion, they are more likely to sustain material cooperation in the face of state repression. These findings contextualize and expand upon research demonstrating that connections between violent nonstate actors strongly shape their tactical and strategic behavior.

  PublisherDOI

• Leadership Targeting and Militant Alliance Breakdown

  The Journal of Politics · 2021-06-03 · 35 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Existing research finds that cooperation among militant groups is common and contributes to both capabilities and lethality. Comparatively little is known, however, about how militant alliances are maintained and how they break apart. We argue that leaders are critical to sustaining alliances among militant groups. As a consequence, organizational disruption in the form of leadership targeting can lead to the breakdown of militant alliances. To test this argument, we pair original data on militant alliances with data on leadership targeting to reveal that decapitating an organization’s leader, and particularly its founder, increases the probability that an organization’s alliances terminate. We find that leadership decapitation spurs alliance termination by incapacitating targeted groups, stoking fear among allies, and inducing preference divergence between targeted groups and allies over strategy.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Governmental Responses to Terrorism in Autocracies: Evidence from China

  British Journal of Political Science · 2021-01-25 · 12 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Autocracies are widely assumed to have a counterterrorism advantage because they can censor media and are insulated from public opinion, thereby depriving terrorists of both their audience and political leverage. However, institutionalized autocracies such as China draw legitimacy from public approval and feature partially free media environments, meaning that their information strategies must be much more sophisticated than simple censorship. To better understand the strategic considerations that govern decisions about transparency in this context, this article explores the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) treatment of domestic terrorist incidents in the official party mouthpiece – the People's Daily. Drawing on original, comprehensive datasets of all known Uyghur terrorist violence in China and the official coverage of that violence, the findings demonstrate that the CCP promptly acknowledges terrorist violence only when both domestic and international conditions are favorable. The authors attribute this pattern to the entrenched prioritization of short-term social stability over longer-term legitimacy.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Matthew A. Baum

  25 shared

• Michael C. Horowitz

  University of Pennsylvania

  13 shared

• Christopher Blair

  Princeton University

  8 shared

• Evan Perkoski

  5 shared

• Kamran Kowsari

  5 shared

• Chen Wang

  China Three Gorges University

  4 shared

• Mojtaba Heidarysafa

  4 shared

• Julia Gray

  4 shared