Aaron Bateman

Aaron Bateman is a historian of technology and international affairs. Broadly, his research investigates how technology shaped international politics in the Cold War. His current projects explore the hidden infrastructures – on land, under the sea, and in space – that enabled U.S. global power in the second half of the 20th century.

His award-winning book, Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Strategic Defense Initiative (MIT Press, 2024), reframes the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) as a family of technological programs that were driven by a U.S. aim to achieve military supremacy in space. The book details the international dimensions of SDI as well, revealing that several U.S. allies participated in the program to get access to dual-use technologies. Finally, the book challenges the conventional narrative of SDI as a failure, showing instead how it evolved in response to changing geopolitical conditions. Bateman is also co-editor of Racing for Technology: An International History of the Strategic Defense Initiative, forthcoming with Cornell University Press.

His current book project, entitled Wiring an Empire: Information Networks and U.S. Global Power in the Cold War (under advance contract with MIT Press), traces the development of government and commercial communications infrastructure stretching from the seabed to space that has been a key enabler of U.S. power since 1945. The book details how the U.S. national security establishment grappled with the geographic, organizational, and technological challenges of moving data on a global scale.

His peer-reviewed work has been published in International Security, the Journal of Strategic Studies, International History Review, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Intelligence and National Security, and Science & Diplomacy (among others). His policy commentary has been featured in Foreign Affairs, Engelsberg Ideas, Lawfare, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and Physics Today.

His research is supported by grants from the Stanton Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation. He is a non-resident fellow of the security studies program at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Prior to his doctoral studies, he served for six years as a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer.