Michael R. Gordon is the national security correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Gordon has also covered numerous military conflicts from the field, including the counter-ISIS campaign in Iraq and Syria, the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the Kosovo conflict, the Russian intervention in Chechnya, the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the American invasion of Panama. He has also has travelled with three secretaries of state and written extensively about diplomatic issues. 

Before joining The Wall Street Journal, Gordon was a correspondent for The New York Times for 32 years. From 1996 to 2000, Gordon was based in Moscow, where he served as the Times' bureau chief.  Later, he served as the Times’ chief military correspondent .

Gordon co-authored three critically acclaimed books with the late Bernard Trainor, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general. His most recent book, The Endgame, covers political and military events in Iraq from the American-led invasion in 2003 through the withdrawal of American forces at the end of 2011. The Wall Street Journal listed The Endgame as one of the top ten non-fiction books of the year. James Jeffrey, the former United States Ambassador to Iraq,” described it as “the most authoritative” account of the conflict. 

Gordon’s second book, Cobra II, focused on the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Economist magazine described Cobra II as a “magisterial” account that provided “mountains of fresh detail on the war’s planning and progress with judicious analysis.” 

Gordon’s first book, The Generals’ War, covered the American and allied campaign to evict Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait. Foreign Affairs magazine described the volume as the “best single volume on the Gulf War.” 
In 1989, Gordon was awarded the George Polk Award for International Reporting for his work with Stephen Engelberg on the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons technologies and Libya’s effort to build a chemical weapons plant.

In addition to his writing, Gordon organized and reported an award-winning documentary on the conflict in Chechnya, "Deadlock: Russia's Forgotten War," which was broadcast internationally by CNN Presents. He has also written articles for The New York Times; Survival, a journal published by the International Institute of Strategic Studies; and Foreign Policy magazine. 

Gordon is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received a B.A. from Colgate University, an M.A. in Philosophy from the Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.