Darrell Smith

  • Nonresident Senior Fellow

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Issues

Defense Policy Intelligence Security & Defense Security Partnerships Space Security

Regions

East Asia Indo-Pacific Japan Korea South Asia

Languages

English Korean
About Related Content

Darrell Smith is a nonresident senior fellow with the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is an intelligence, national security, and Asia expert with over twenty years of experience and eight overseas tours, including in Korea, Japan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, and Vietnam.

Smith has directed high-stakes operations in the Middle East, and he authored NATO International Security Assistance Force’s Counternarcotics Campaign Plan in 2012, earning the Bronze Star. He also led intelligence for a 270-person personal security detachment for the top seven Iraqi leaders in 2007 and 2008, with no combat casualties, in which he orchestrated two hostage recoveries.

In East and South Asia, Smith led the Air Force’s Foreign Military Sales Korea portfolio from the Pentagon, served four years in India and Korea analyst roles at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and served as senior watch officer in Korea and Japan for seven years, winning top military officer awards. For his lifetime commitment to the United States and Republic of Korea’s alliance, the ROK minister of defense personally awarded Smith the 2017 US-ROK Alliance Award and medal (one of Korea’s highest military honors).

While serving an Air Force Fellowship to the US embassy in Hanoi in 2009, he led the congressional delegation for senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, opening improved bilateral relations with the country. In 2022, Smith was the contributing editor of We Came Home, The Firsthand Stories of Vietnam POWs, recognized by the governor of Virginia and the Virginia War Memorial.

Smith holds five degrees including a BA in Asian history from the University of Maryland Global Campus, a master of military operational art and science from Air University, and a doctor of management in global leadership from Colorado Tech. He is also an adjunct professor at George Mason University’s Department of Information Technology, teaching their STEM Capstone course to seniors.