Dr. Ilai Saltzman is an Associate Research Professor of Israel Studies and the Director of the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. His scholarship and teaching focus on international security, Israeli foreign and security policy, U.S. foreign policy, and political psychology. He is the author of Securitizing Balance of Power Theory: A Polymorphic Reconceptualization (2012) and has written numerous scholarly articles and commentaries in the Los Angeles Times, Ha'aretz, The Jerusalem Post, and other prominent outlets. Saltzman earned his Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Haifa and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.