Aaron Bateman

Aaron Bateman is a historian of technology and international affairs. His research explores how technological change has shaped U.S. foreign policy, alliances, and military power since 1945.

His award-winning book, Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Strategic Defense Initiative (MIT Press, 2024), uses multinational archival sources to situate the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) within a long running U.S. strategy of leveraging space technologies to shift the superpower military balance in its favor. The book examines SDI’s impact on U.S. defense strategy, the transatlantic alliance, arms control, and post-Cold War international security.

His second book (which is under contract with MIT Press), Wiring an Empire: Information Networks and U.S. Global Power in the Cold War, traces the development of communications infrastructure stretching from the seabed to space that has enabled U.S. diplomacy, intelligence, and military power since 1945. This book project is part of his larger research agenda that focuses on the infrastructural foundations of U.S. global power in the postwar era.

His peer-reviewed work has been published in International Security, the Journal of Strategic Studies, International History Review, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Intelligence and National Security, and Science & Diplomacy (among others). His policy commentary has been featured in Foreign Affairs, Engelsberg Ideas, Lawfare, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and Physics Today.

He is a non-resident fellow of the security studies program at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. His research is supported by grants from the Stanton Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation. Prior to his doctoral studies he served as a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer.