Veteran. Author. War and National Security Analyst.
Wes J. Bryant is a former senior policy analyst and advisor on precision warfare and civilian harm mitigation at the Pentagon’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence where he led as the first-ever Branch Chief of Civilian Harm Assessments. He is a retired master sergeant and former special operations joint terminal attack controller (JTAC) in the elite special warfare branch of the US Air Force and coauthor of the book Hunting the Caliphate: America’s War on ISIS and the Dawn of the Strike Cell, a first-person account of the war against ISIS. In 2014, he was a key member of the special operations crisis response force sent to safeguard Baghdad against the threat of ISIS, where he established the first strike cells to take down the caliphate and led three separate strike cells combatting terrorist entities across Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.
Today, Wes is a leading war and national security analyst with focus on global conflict and foreign policy, counterterrorism, strike and joint targeting operations, and civilian harm. He has been an outspoken opponent of Israel’s war in Gaza and has assisted in numerous investigations into Israeli military practices and targeting operations. In 2024, he was a lead member of a senate task force conducting analysis and assessment of Israeli military conduct in Gaza, where he directly advised Congress toward foreign policy reform. He has served as a special advisor to the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry on Palestine as well as a United Nations war crimes mechanism in Asia and currently works as a principal analyst for an international legal advocacy nonprofit conducting investigations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Wes has also been a fierce opponent of the rise of authoritarianism and dismantling of democratic norms under the Trump administration and has faced retaliation as a Pentagon whistleblower.
Wes has provided expert commentary in appearances on CNN, BBC, PBS, and more along with analysis for outlets such as Washington Post, New York Times, Reuters, and many others. He has presented at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the U.S. Army War College, Duke Law Center for Law, Ethics, and National Security, Northeastern University School of Business, the University of Massachusetts School of International Relations, and the Center for American Progress.
Wes holds a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies from the University of Maryland, a Master of Professional Studies in Publishing through George Washington University, and a Master of Business Administration with focus on strategic competition and emerging technologies through George Washington University. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in war studies research with focus on precision warfare and civilian harm through King’s College London. You can follow him on Facebook, X, Instagram, Bluesky, LinkedIn, YouTube, and even TikTok @wesjbryant and find his work and publications at wesjbryant.com.
“I’ve been a lifelong philosopher, writer, and artist of many colors. From storytelling, to poetry, to singer-songwriting, to training in the traditional martial arts — I find wisdom and refuge in them all. In my work, I blend perspectives from a life of both extreme adversity and great opportunity. From a troubled upbringing that pushed me to leave everything behind for the military, finding myself thick in the global war on terror and struggling with the traumas born from combat, to the healing experience of training under a Kung Fu Grandmaster in South Korea who had grown up up in Japanese-occupied North Korea and became a guerrilla fighter against the Chinese Communists in the Korean War, to surviving in the cutthroat world of business and being called back to a higher purpose at the Pentagon. Most importantly, building an amazing and beautiful family through it all—who taught me life’s most valuable lessons. Everything I do is rooted in the heart, mind, and soul, and from an intense passion to create ripples of positive change in a world of chaos. ”