Alumni Spotlight: Becca Wasser

Inside the Wargaming Lab: Becca Wasser’s Path from TWI to CNAS

Becca Wasser started as a research assistant at The Washington Institute and has since gone on to influence U.S. military strategy at the highest levels. Today, she serves as Deputy Director of the Gaming Lab and Senior Fellow in the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where she leads wargaming efforts and advises on military strategy and force posture. Her career has spanned top defense research institutions, including RAND Corporation and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), but it all started with a post-9/11 sense of purpose.

“I grew up in New Jersey and was very much part of the 9/11 generation,” Wasser recalled. “That shaped my worldview and what I wanted to do, which led me to study international relations and Middle Eastern studies at Brandeis, and ultimately to Washington.”

After graduating from Brandeis University, Becca earned her master’s degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University before joining the Washington Institute’s research team. She quickly built a foundation in foreign policy, writing, and event management that would shape the rest of her career.

“I like to think I got the jobs I did because I’m smart and I can write and argue a perspective,” she told TWI Alumni Connection. “But honestly, I think half of it was because I’m organized, know how to run events, and can craft a conversation that leads to real insights. Those were skills I learned at the Institute that carried me throughout my career.”

From the Institute, Becca transitioned to IISS, working in both Washington and Bahrain on foremost security conferences like the Manama Dialogue and Shangri-La Dialogue. Eventually, her work took on a more global and technical focus. At RAND Corporation, she dove headfirst into defense strategy and military operations, working across all branches of the military, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the State Department, and U.S. allies.

“RAND was where I gained technical depth. CNAS is where I honed my craft and started communicating those ideas to broader audiences,” she explained. “It’s also where I stopped seeing things purely from a service-specific or [Department of Defense] lens and started thinking about broader effects on industry, partners, and policy writ large.”

Now at CNAS, Becca directs the organization’s Wargaming Lab, where she designs immersive simulations to stress-test defense strategies, revealing their strengths and blind spots. She describes the format simply: “A game is a group of people making choices and having to live with the consequences in a synthetic environment.” Whether the scenario is regional or global, games help reveal assumptions that traditional analysis might miss.

One particularly memorable experience? Running a U.S.-China war game on national television.

“A media outlet wanted to show the public what a war game looks like, and what a conflict between the U.S. and China might entail,” she said. “We filmed it for a day, and they turned it into a half-hour episode for NBC’s Meet the Press.”

Becca’s focus today is less on the Middle East and more on the global posture of U.S. military forces, but there is some overlap. For example, regarding recent U.S. military operations in Yemen to combat Houthi attacks in Israel, Becca explained how Operation Prosperity Guardian was a massive expenditure of U.S. force readiness and munitions.

“We need to ask: Are there better ways to protect global shipping without drawing down our preparedness for future, higher-priority threats? Bombing Houthis into submission hasn’t proven effective. We need to think differently.”

Throughout her work, Becca has identified a recurring challenge in U.S. defense planning: the gap between the ideal and the real.

“We often plan based on idealized conditions, not accounting for how adversaries actually behave or how long supply chains take to deliver the weapons a strategy requires,” she said. “There’s a disconnect between our strategic goals and the systems we have to achieve them. That’s where games can be really helpful—they help us see where our assumptions break down.”

While many early-career professionals feel pressure to follow a linear path, Becca credits her success to flexibility.

“I’ve always had ambition, but not necessarily toward one specific goal. That meant I was open to new things as they came. If you’d told me back when I was at the Institute that I’d be a defense analyst talking about military operations, I’d have said you were crazy. But I kept learning and trying, and here I am.”

Her advice to young professionals?

“Don’t get too wedded to one path. Say yes to opportunities that help you grow, even if they aren’t perfect. And remember: metrics of success look different for everyone. Define yours.”

“Being organized, detail-oriented, knowing how to follow through—those are the skills people remember and want on their teams,” she said. “Especially in this field, where you have to both think and do.”

Media Relations Associate Shelby Weiss conducted this interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.

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