Veteran. Author. Defense 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 written alongside the former ground force commander of Iraq, Major General Dana J.H. Pittard. In 2014, he was a key member of the special operations crisis response force sent to safeguard Baghdad against the threat of ISIS and established the first strike cells to take down the caliphate. As a senior targeting professional, he led three separate strike cells combatting ISIS and other terrorist entities across Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.
Today, Wes is a leading defense and national security analyst with focus on foreign policy and global conflict, counterterrorism and extremism, strike and joint targeting operations, and civilian harm mitigation. In 2024, he was a lead member of a key senate task force conducting analysis and assessment of US, allied, and adversary practices and conduct in warfare, targeting, and civilian harm mitigation, where he directly advised Congress toward national security policy reform. He has been an outspoken opponent of Israel’s operations in Gaza and has provided analysis for numerous investigations into Israeli military actions against the Palestinian civilian populace. He is currently serving as special advisor to the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry on Palestine and the United Nations Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar.
Wes has provided expert commentary in appearances on BBC, CNN, PBS, and more along with analysis for Washington Post, New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, and many others. He has presented at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point; the U.S. Army War College, Duke School of Law’s Center for Law, Ethics, and National Security; Northeastern University School of Business; and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst School of International Relations.
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 technology and innovation through George Washington University. You can follow him on Facebook, X, Instagram, Bluesky, LinkedIn, YouTube, and even TikTok @wesjbryant and find his works 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 Pentagon. Most importantly, building an amazing and beautiful family through it all who taught life’s most valuable lessons. Everything I do is rooted in the heart, mind, and soul — and an intense passion to create ripples of positive change in a world of chaos. ”