Miller is Director of the International Security Program, Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal, International Security and also co-editor of the International Security Program's book series, BCSIA Studies in International Security (which is published by MIT Press). Previously, he was Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and taught Defense and Arms Control Studies in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is co-author of the recent monograph, Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy: Containing the Threat of Loose Russian Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material, and of its predecessor, Soviet Nuclear Fission: Control of the Nuclear Arsenal in a Disintegrating Soviet Union (1991). Miller is editor or co-editor of some two dozen books, including, most recently, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict (1997), Debating the Democratic Peace (1996), and The Perils of Anarchy: Contemporary Realism and International Security (1995).

Miller is a member of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), of the Committee on International Security Studies (CISS) of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, co-chair of the American Pugwash Committee, a member of the Council of International Pugwash, member of the Advisory Committee of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), and member of the Scientific Committee of the Landau Network Centro Volta (Italy). Within Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Miller serves on the steering committees of the Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe and of the Harvard Ukrainian Project.

Miller was born and raised in North Hollywood, California. He did his undergraduate degree at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He received a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) and a Doctorate in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is married to Deborah K. Louis, who is Vice President for Operations of Natural Microsystems (a high-technology firm). They have two sons: Jonathan (8) and Nicholas (1).