Isaac B. Kardon, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the U.S Naval War College (NWC) in the Department of Strategic and Operational Research. He is a core member of the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI), where he researches and writes on maritime disputes, Indo-Pacific maritime security and commerce, China-Pakistan relations, and the law of the sea. Dr. Kardon also serves as managing editor of the CMSI Red Book series of monographs on Chinese maritime power. He teaches classes on Chinese politics and foreign policy to American and foreign M.A. students at NWC.
Dr. Kardon’s book manuscript, "China’s Law of the Sea: Rising Power, Creeping Jurisdiction," analyzes the PRC’s practice of the law of the sea in its maritime disputes. He is also conducting a study on China’s investments and interests in global ports and intermodal infrastructure, with several case studies of China’s “strategic strongpoint” Indian Ocean ports, forthcoming as CMSI Red Book no. 18. His research on China has been published by Stanford University Press, the University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review, Global Asia, Routledge, CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, and elsewhere.
Prior to joining the faculty at NWC, Dr. Kardon was a postdoctoral fellow with the Princeton-Harvard China & the World Program (2017), a visiting scholar at NYU Law’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute (2015-2016), and adjunct research fellow at the National Defense University – INSS (2011-2015), where he was also a research analyst (2009-2011) in the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs. During dissertation fieldwork on a Fulbright-Hays award in China (2014-2015), he was a visiting scholar with the PRC National Institute for South China Sea Studies in Hainan, China, and a visiting fellow at Academia Sinica in Taipei. He has lectured on the law of the sea at Peking University, Tsinghua University, and National Taiwan University.
Dr. Kardon received a Ph.D. in government from Cornell University (2017), where his dissertation analyzed China’s practice of the law of the sea, focusing on the PRC’s role in the development of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) regime. He holds an M.Phil. in modern Chinese studies from Oxford University (2009), and a B.A. in history from Dartmouth College (2005). He studied Mandarin at Peking University, Tsinghua University, Hainan University, and National Taiwan Normal University. Dr. Kardon speaks, reads, and writes Italian, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese.