Dr. Sepp is presently a Senior Lecturer in the Defense Analysis Department at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. From 2019 to 2020, he was Chair of the department. 

Dr. Sepp served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Counterterrorism, from 2007 to 2009. He was a member of the White House Counterterrorism Strategy Group, and was responsible for the Department of Defense global counterterrorism portfolio. This included policy oversight of all special operations world-wide, and formulation of the Department’s global counterterrorism strategy. 

A former U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) officer, he earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University, and his Combat Infantryman Badge in the Salvadoran Civil War. Dr. Sepp also graduated from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College with a Master’s degree in Military Art and Science. His unit assignments included the 82d Airborne Division, the 2d Ranger Battalion, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Germany, and the 2d Infantry Division in Korea, among others. He was an assistant professor of history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and a resident scholar at Harvard University. 

He served as an analyst and strategist in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as an expert member of the Baker-Hamilton Bipartisan Commission on Iraq, a.k.a. the Iraq Study Group. 

While assigned in Iraq, Dr. Sepp wrote “Best Practices in Counterinsurgency,” later published in Military Review (May-June 2005), and reprinted in Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese. He is co-author of Weapon of Choice: U.S. Army Special Operations in Afghanistan, with R. Kiper, J. Schroder, and C. Briscoe (2003). He also authored chapters for Assessing War: The Challenge of Measuring Success and Failure (2015), Leadership: The Warrior’s Art (2001), War in Iraq: Planning and Execution (2007), Fuehrungsdenken in europaeischen und nordamerikanischen Steitkraeften im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (2001), A Global History of Relocation in Counterinsurgency Warfare (2020), and the NATO report, Counterinsurgency: The Challenge for NATO Strategy and Operations (2010), along with other articles, essays, reviews and studies. 

Dr. Sepp was named one of “The Ten Most Influential Counterinsurgency Thinkers” in the United States by Foreign Policy magazine (2009). He has appeared on PBS Newshour, CNN, CNNi, BBC, MSNBC, CBS, National Public Radio and other national news programs. His sons – a Marine and an Army paratrooper, both captains – both served in Iraq.