Dr. Mira Rapp-Hooper is a Senior Advisor at The Asia Group, where she advises clients on geopolitical risk and a visiting fellow at Brookings, where she researches and writes on national security and strategy issues in Asia.
A distinguished political scientist and former senior U.S. national security official, Rapp-Hooper advises clients navigating the complex security and political dynamics of the Indo-Pacific region, with particular expertise in U.S. alliances, deterrence, nuclear policy, and great power competition.
Rapp-Hooper most recently served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East Asia and Oceania at the White House National Security Council, where she was the top White House advisor on the region. From 2021 to 2023, she served as Director for Indo-Pacific Strategy at the NSC, shaping the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy and managing key initiatives including the Quad, U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateral cooperation, and regional economic and security frameworks.
Previously, Rapp-Hooper held senior fellowships at the Center for a New American Security and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where she led the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. She also served on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and as Asia Policy Coordinator for the 2016 Clinton campaign. A published author and frequent commentator, Rapp-Hooper has written for Foreign Affairs, Political Science Quarterly, and The Washington Quarterly, among others.
She is the author of Shields of the Republic: The Triumph and Peril of America’s Alliances and co-author of An Open World: How America Can Win the Contest for Twenty-First-Century Order.
Rapp-Hooper holds a BA from Stanford University and a PhD from Columbia University.
