Dr. Erica Lonergan (née Borghard) is an Assistant Professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Previously, Erica held several positions at the United States Military Academy at West Point. These include serving as an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Social Science and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; a fellow at the Army Cyber Institute; and the Executive Director of the Rupert H. Johnson Grand Strategy Program. She has also held positions as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Atlantic Council.

Beyond her academic and research appointments, Erica has an extensive background in strategy and policy. Erica currently serves as a member of the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Army War College. Previously, she was a lead writer of the 2023 U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Strategy, as well as the Congressionally-mandated Department of Defense Cyber Posture Review. Prior to that, Erica served as a Senior Director on the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a bipartisan Congressional commission established to develop a new strategy and policies to defend the United States in cyberspace. Erica continues to serve as a Senior Advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission 2.0. She also held an appointment as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, with placement at JPMorgan Chase and U.S. Cyber Command at the Cyber National Mission Force.

Erica has published widely on cybersecurity, grand strategy, military affairs, and international security. Her book, Escalation Dynamics in Cyberspace, was recently published at Oxford University Press. Additionally, Erica has published articles in top-tier academic journals, including American Political Science Review, Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, and Strategic Studies Quarterly. She has also written policy articles for a number of think tanks, as well as articles in venues such as Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, and Lawfare.

Erica received her PhD in Political Science from Columbia University.

Books

Erica Lonergan, Escalation Dynamics in Cyberspace. With Shawn W. Lonergan. (Oxford University Press: Bridging the Gap Series, 2023).
Erica Borghard and Heidi Demarest, National Security Reform for a New Era: Reassessing the National Security Act of 1947 (Routledge, 2018).

Principal Articles

Erica Lonergan, “Evaluating Assumptions About the Role of Cyberspace in Warfighting: Evidence from Ukraine,” With Margaret W. Smith and Grace B. Mueller, 15th International Conference on Cyber Conflict: Meeting Reality, NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (2023).
Erica Lonergan, “The Power of Beliefs in US Cyber Strategy: The Evolving Role of Deterrence, Norms, and Escalation.” With Jacquelyn Schneider. Journal of Cybersecurity (March 2023).
Erica Lonergan, “Cyber Operations and Signaling: An Exchange — The Authors Reply.” With Shawn W. Lonergan. Security Studies (December 2022).
Erica Lonergan and Shawn Lonergan, “Cyber Operations, Accommodative Signaling, and the De-Escalation of International Crises,” Security Studies 31, no. 1 (February 2022).
Erica Borghard and Mark Montgomery, “Cyber Threats and Vulnerabilities to Conventional and Strategic Deterrence,” Joint Forces Quarterly (Third Quarter, 2021).
Erica Borghard and Shawn Lonergan, “Deterrence by Denial in Cyberspace,” Journal of Strategic Studies (August 2021).
Erica Lonergan and Mark Montgomery, “What is the Future of Cyber Deterrence?,” SAIS Review of International Affairs 41, no. 2 (Summer/Fall 2021).
Patrick Murphy and Erica Borghard, “To Defend Forward, U.S. Cyber Strategy Demands a Cohesive Vision for Information Operations,” Cyber Defense Review (Fall 2020).
Erica Borghard and Shawn Lonergan, “Cyber Operations as Imperfect Tools of Escalation,” Strategic Studies Quarterly (Fall 2019).
Erica Borghard and Shawn Lonergan, “Confidence Building Measures for the Cyber Domain,” Strategic Studies Quarterly (Fall 2018).  
Erica Borghard and Shawn Lonergan, “The Logic of Coercion in Cyberspace,” Security Studies (Spring 2017).
Erica Borghard and Shawn Lonergan, “Can Status Calculate the Risks of Using Cyber Proxies?,” Orbis (Summer 2016).
Erica Borghard and Mira Rapp-Hooper, “Hizbullah and the Iranian Nuclear Programme,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy (August-September 2013).
Erica Borghard and Mira Rapp-Hooper, “Hizbullah and the Iranian Nuclear Programme,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 55, no. 4 (2013).
Erica Borghard and Costantino Pischedda, “Allies and Airpower in Libya,” Parameters (Spring 2012).
Erica Borghard and Costantino Pischedda, “Allies and Airpower in Libya,” Parameters 64 (2012).
Jack Snyder and Erica Borghard, “The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound,” American Political Science Review (August 2011).
Erica Borghard and Jack Snyder, “The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound,” American Political Science Review 105, no. 3 (2011).
Erica Borghard and Jack Snyder, “The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound,” The American Political Science Review 105, no. 3 (2011).

Book Chapters

Erica Borghard and Shawn W. Lonergan, “Public-Private Partnerships in Cyberspace in an Era of Great-Power Competition,” in Jacquelyn G. Schneider, Emily O. Goldman, and Michael Warner, eds., Ten Years In: Implementing Strategic Approaches to Cyberspace (U.S. Naval War College, Newport Papers 45, 2020).  
Erica Borghard and James Mulvenon, “Strategic Implications of Cyber Conflict,” in Cyber Conflict: The State of the Field, eds. Jason Healey and Karl Grindal (Vienna, VA: Cyber Conflict Studies Association, 2018).

Other Articles, Testimony and Reports

Erica Lonergan, “Beyond Binaries: Cyber Force Generation and the SOCOM-like Model”, Irregular Warfare Initiative, November 7, 2024.
Erica Lonergan, “Congress must demand a study of America’s cyber forces”, CyberScoop, November 7, 2024.
Erica Lonergan, “Competing Visions for US Grand Strategy in Cyberspace”, Security Studies, September 19, 2024.
Emerson T. Brooking and Erica Lonergan, “Welcome to Cyber Realism: Parsing the 2023 Department of Defense Cyber Strategy,” War on the Rocks, (September 2023).
Erica Lonergan and Jacquelyn Schneider, “America’s Digital Achilles’ Heel,” Foreign Affairs, (September 2023)
Erica Lonergan and Michael Poznansky, “Are We Asking Too Much of Cyber?” War on the Rocks (May 2023).
Erica Lonergan, “The Implications of Cyber Proxies in the Ukraine Conflict.” Center for Strategic and International Studies (May 2023).
Erica Lonergan, “Securing the United States Defense ICT Supply Chain of the Future.” With Gary Corn and Mary Brooks. R Street (April 2023).
Erica Lonergan, “Evaluating the National Cyber Force’s ‘Responsible Cyber Power in Practice.’” RUSI (April 2023).
Erica Lonergan, “Experts Reflect on the First Year of the Ukraine War.” Inkstick (March 2023).
Maggie Smith, Erica D. Lonergan, and Nick Starck, “What Impact, if Any, Does Killnet Have?,” Lawfare (October 2022).
Erica D. Lonergan and Maggie Smith, “Who Attacked Montenegro? The Moral and Strategic Hazards of Misassigning Blame,” Political Violence at a Glance (September 2022).
Erica Lonergan, “What Are the Implications of the Cyber Dimension of the China-Taiwan Crisis?” With Grace B. Mueller. Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics (August 2022).
Erica Lonergan, “Want Better Cyber Policy? Talk to Social Scientists.” With Maggie Smith. Modern War Institute (July 2022).
Erica Lonergan and Sara B. Moller, “NATO’s Credibility Is on the Line with Its Cyber Defense Pledge. That’s a Bad Idea,” Politico (April 2022).
Erica Lonergan and Keren Yarhi-Milo, “Cyber Signaling and Nuclear Deterrence: Implications for the Ukraine Crisis,” War on the Rocks (April 2022).  
Erica Lonergan, “What the War in Ukraine Reveals About State-Backed Hacking,” Foreign Affairs (April 2022).
Erica Lonergan, “The Cyber-Escalation Fallacy: What the War in Ukraine Reveals about State-Based Hacking,” Foreign Affairs online (April 2022).
Brandon Valeriano and Erica Lonergan, “What Ukraine Shows About Cyber Defense and Partnerships,” The National Interest online (March 2022).
Erica Lonergan and Shawn Lonergan, “To Defend Forward, the U.S. Must Strengthen the Cyber Mission Force,” Lawfare (March 2020).
Erica Lonergan, Shawn Lonergan, Brandon Valeriano, and Benjamin Jensen, “Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Didn’t Rely on Cyberwarfare. Here’s Why,” Washington Post (March 2022).  
Erica Lonergan and Shawn Lonergan, “What do Russia’s Cyber Moves Mean for the Ukraine Crisis?,” Washington Post (January 2022).
Erica Lonergan and Mark Montgomery, “The Promise and Perils of Allied Offensive Cyber Operations,” 14th International Conference on Cyber Conflict: Keep Moving, NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (2022).  
Erica Lonergan and Jacquelyn Schneider, “What the U.S. Should Learn from U.K. Cyber Strategy,” The Wall Street Journal (December 2021).
Erica Lonergan and Jacquelyn Schneider, “Cyber Challenges for a New National Defense Strategy,” War on the Rocks (December 2021).
Erica Lonergan and Lauren Zabierek, “Cyber Command Is in the Ransomware Game—Now What?,” Lawfare (December 2021).
Erica Borghard, “Promoting Global Financial Resilience Against Cyber Threats Through an Operational Collaboration Approach,” Think 20 Italy 2021 (September 2021).
Erica Lonergan and Lauren Zabierek, “What Is Cyber Command’s Role in Combating Ransomware?,” Lawfare, 18 August 2021.  
Erica Lonergan, “What Makes This Attribution of Chinese Hacking Different,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 22 July 2021.  
Erica Lonergan, “After the Biden-Putin Summit, U.S.-Russia Expert Consultations Should Focus on the Financial Sector,” Lawfare, 12 July 2021.
Erica Borghard, Mark Montgomery, and Brandon Valeriano, “The Challenge of Educating the Military on Cyber Strategy,” War on the Rocks, 25 June 2021.  
Erica Borghard, “The Colonial Pipeline Incident Shows the Need for Broader Thinking about Cyber Resilience,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 20 May 2021.
Erica Lonergan, “Cyberspace Is Neither Just an Intelligence Contest, nor a Domain of Military Conflict; SolarWinds Shows Us Why It’s Both,” Lawfare, 12 May 2021.
Erica Borghard, “Closing the Gaps in Cybersecurity,” Inkstick, 19 April 2021.  
Erica Borghard, “Punitive Response to SolarWinds Would Be Misplaced, But Cyber Deterrence Still Matters,” Russia Matters, Harvard Kennedy School, 31 March 2021.  
Erica Borghard and Emma Ashford, “A Mom’s Guide to Deterrence and Coercion,” Atlantic Council. 16 March 2021.  
Erica Borghard and Jacquelyn Schneider, “Want to Tell Russia to Stop Hacking U.S. Systems? Here’s What Works – And What Doesn’t,” The Washington Post, 16 March 2021.
Erica Lonergan, “Was SolarWinds a Different Type of Cyber Espionage?,” Lawfare, 9 March 2021.
Erica Borghard, “Assumption #2: Strategies of Coercion Are Effective,” Atlantic Council, 4 March 2021.
Erica Borghard, “Reality Check #3: The Uses and Abuses of Deterrence,” Atlantic Council, 1 March 2021.
Erica Borghard, “Reality Check #2: Economic Sanctions Should Not Always Be the Go-To Foreign Policy Tool,” Atlantic Council, 22 February 2021.
Erica Borghard, Benjamin Jensen, and Mark Montgomery, “Elevating ‘deterrence by denial’ in US defense strategy,” Atlantic Council, 4 February 2021.
Erica Borghard, “Time to End the Dual Hat?,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 3 February 2021.  
Erica Borghard, “A Grand Strategy Based on Resilience,” War on the Rocks, 4 January 2021.
Erica Borghard, “The SolarWinds Compromise and the Strategic Challenge of the Information and Communications Technology Supply Chain,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 22 December 2020.
Erica Borghard, “Russia’s Hack Wasn’t Cyberwar. That Complicates US Strategy,” Wired, 17 December 2020.

Erica Borghard and Jacquelyn Schneider, “Russia’s Hack Wasn’t Cyberwar: That Complicates U.S. Strategy,” WIRED, 17 December 2020.
Erica Borghard and Jacquelyn Schneider, “3 Lessons from Russia’s Cyberhack into U.S. Agencies,” The Washington Post, 16 December 2020.  
Erica Borghard, “Emerging Technology and a Reimagined U.S.-EU Partnership,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 9 December 2020.
Erica Borghard, “Money and Influence: The Economic Aspects of Great Power Competition,” The Modern War Institute, 2 December 2020.
Erica Borghard, “Biden Will Think Globally to Solve Domestic Issues. The Post-COVID World Will Demand It,” New Atlanticist, 9 November 2020.
Erica Borghard, “Defending the 2020 Election: It’s Not Time to Celebrate (Yet),” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 9 November 2020.
Erica Lonergan, “Cyber Command’s Role in Election Defense: Important, But Not a Panacea,” Lawfare, 30 October 2020.
Erica Borghard, “Congress Should Act to Ensure Weapon Systems’ Cybersecurity,” Council on Foreign Relations, 10 September 2020.  
Erica Borghard, “Persistent Vulnerabilities: Strengthening Cybersecurity Requirements for the Department of Defense,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 17 June 2020.  
Erica Lonergan, “Cyber Command Needs New Acquisition Authorities,” Lawfare, 12 May 2020.
Erica Borghard, “The Department of Defense Should Not Wage Cyber War Against Criminal Hackers During the Coronavirus Crisis,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 29 April 2020.
Erica Borghard, “U.S. Cyber Command’s Malware Inoculation: Linking Offense and Defense in Cyberspace.” With Shawn W. Lonergan. Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 22 April 2020.
Erica Lonergan and Shawn Lonergan, “Ensuring the Cybersecurity and Resilience of the Defense Industrial Base,” Lawfare, 12 March 2020.
Erica Lonergan and Mark Montgomery, “Defend Forward as a Whole-of-Nation Effort,” Lawfare, 12 March 2020.
Erica Borghard and Jacquelyn Schneider, “Israel Responded to a Hamas Cyberattack with an Airstrike. That’s Not a Big Deal,” The Washington Post, 9 May 2019.
Erica Borghard and Shawn Lonergan, “The Overlooked Military Implications of the 5G Debate,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 25 April 2019.
Erica Borghard, “What a U.S. Operation Against Russian Trolls Predicts about Escalation in Cyberspace,” War on the Rocks, 22 March 2019.
Erica Borghard and Shawn Lonergan, “Chinese Hackers are Stealing U.S. Defense Secrets: Here is How to Stop Them,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 11 March 2019.  
Erica Lonergan, “Banking on Cooperation: The U.S. Government and the Finance Industry Need to Work Together to Defend the Financial Sector from Cyber Threats,” Lawfare, 3 October 2018.
Erica Borghard, “Protecting Financial Institutions from Cyber Threats: A National Security Issue,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 24 September 2018.
Erica Borghard, “What Do the Trump Administration’s Changes to PPD-20 Mean for U.S. Offensive Cyber Operations?,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 10 September 2018.  
Erica Borghard, “The ‘Known Unknowns’ of Russian Cyber Signaling,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 4 April 2018.
Erica Borghard, “Borghard on Perkovich and Levite, ‘Understanding Cyber Conflict: Fourteen Analogies,’” H-Diplo, 24 March 2018.  
Erica Borghard and Shawn Lonergan, “Why Are There No Cyber Arms Control Agreements?,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 16 January 2018.  
Erica Borghard, “Lost in Cyber Translation? U.S. Cyber Signaling to North Korea,” Council on Foreign Relations: Net Politics, 16 October 2017.
Erica Borghard, “Making Sense of a Syrian Proxy War Gone Amok,” The National Interest online, 26 October 2015.
Erica Borghard and Shawn Lonergan, “Will Air-Sea Battle Be ‘Sunk’ by Cyber Warriors?,” The National Interest online, 8 December 2014.
Erica Borghard and Costantino Pischedda, “Why American Airpower Won’t Save Iraq from ISIS,” The National Interest online, 25 June 2014.  
Erica Borghard and Jack Snyder, “Evading Invasion: Syria’s Chemical Weapons and Obama’s Audience Costs,” Political Violence @ a Glance, 13 December 2013.
Erica Borghard and Costantino Pischedda, “Bombing Can Wait,” The National Interest online, 12 September 2013.
Erica Borghard and Costantino Pischedda, “Obama’s Syria Dilemma,” The National Interest online, 31 August 2013.
Erica Borghard, “The Danger of America’s ‘Proxy War,’” CNN.com, 14 August 2013.
Erica Borghard, “Arms and Influence in Syria: The Pitfalls of Greater U.S. Involvement,” The Cato Institute, Policy Analysis No. 734, 7 August 2013.
Erica Borghard, “Proxy War Can Have Dangerous Consequences,” The Washington Post, 25 July 2013.
Erica Borghard and Kate Cronin-Furman, “Behind the Egyptian Army’s Ultimatum,” The National Interest online, 16 July 2013
Erica Borghard, “Hezbollah, Loyal to a Fault,” The National Interest online, 20 June 2013.