Stephen C. Ruder has worked in the U.S. defense intelligence community for nearly 40 years as a Marine Corps signals intelligence and electronic warfare officer and a civilian analyst with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. A student of naval espionage history, he has published a book covering the history of naval espionage from 1898 – 2010 and three popular history magazine articles covering espionage and counterespionage cases from the American Civil War, World War I, and pre-World War II eras. He graduated from Virginia Tech in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts in History and, having completed the Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class, was commissioned as an officer in the Marine Corps. He served as a company commander with the 2d Radio Battalion with deployments to Honduras and Panama before transitioning to the Marine Corps Reserve. He joined the Naval Investigative Service in 1989 as a counterespionage and counterterrorism analyst, serving in a variety of roles in the United States, Central America, Europe, and Asia for the next 35 years and receiving five national individual or team counterintelligence awards.
Frederick L. Ruder graduated from Roskilde University in Denmark with a Master of Arts in International Politics and Governance in 2025. His master’s thesis “A Bridge of Boats,” examines Sino-American relations through the lens of Graham Allison’s Thucydides’s Trap theory to determine if the two powers are likely to engage in armed conflict in the next decade and if so, what form this conflict will take. Using Allison’s Thucydide’s Trap and the theories and ideas of Mahan and Wegener the study found a strong indication that the conflict would be limited to the area between the South China Sea and the First and Second Island Chain with China employing A2/AD defensive tactics to delay a U.S. counterattack and maintain what ground they have gained. A gifted amateur historian with a keen interest in the Norman conquest of Italy, he applies part time research assistance, proofreading, and critical thinking skills to a variety of projects.