Dr. Gary Sampson, Ph.D.
Dr. Gary J. Sampson is a Senior Nonresident Fellow at The La Jolla Center for Pacific Strategy. His research examines Chinese strategy and alliance politics, with particular attention to China–North Korea relations and deterrence in East Asia. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies and a 2026 Research Fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point.
A retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, Sampson served more than 25 years on active duty as an intelligence and international affairs officer specializing in China and East Asia. His assignments included principal intelligence briefer to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, special assistant and speechwriter to two Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and forces analyst on the Office of the Secretary of Defense Red Team. He served as a Northeast Asia Foreign Area Officer, completed multiple operational tours in Japan and the western Pacific, and deployed to Iraq and the southern Philippines.
Sampson earned his PhD in international relations from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, where his dissertation examined China’s management of its alliance with North Korea after the Cold War. An Olmsted Scholar in Taiwan, he holds master’s degrees from National Sun Yat-sen University and the National Intelligence University and studied Mandarin Chinese at the Defense Language Institute.
He is the founder and editor of Temple of Liberty and a cohost of Marine Pulse, a War on the Rocks podcast. His writing addresses military strategy, civil-military relations, and the responsibilities of democratic citizenship.
Credentials & Affiliations
- Ph.D., International Relations, The Fletcher School at Tufts University
- M.S.S, China and Asia-Pacific Studies, National Sun Yat-sen University
- M.S., Military Strategic Intelligence, National Intelligence University
- B.S., Education and Human Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- A.A., Chinese - Mandarin, Foreign Language Center, Defense Language Institute