Michael Williams is an expert on NATO politics and operations, US Foreign Policy, the changing character of international security and risk. As Head of the Transatlantic Security Programme at RUSI he is responsible for leading research projects, private workshops, roundtable discussions and arranging public conferences on all aspects of the transatlantic defence and security relationship.

His most recent research projects include a series of future security environment studies (2008), an examination of strategic communications in Afghanistan (2008), an evaluation of civil-military relations in conflict environments (2007), and research into the evolution of NATO (2003-2008). He works closely with NATO Allied Command Transformation, NATO HQ, the UK Foreign Office, the UK Ministry of Defence, the US Department of Defence, and the Government of Canada on  these and a number of other issues.

Dr. Williams contributes regular analysis to a number of media outlets including CNN International, BBC, Al-Jazeera and Sky News, as well as the Financial Times, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Times, the Guardian, the Independent, International Affairs and Cooperation & Conflict.

He is the co-editor (with Felix Berenskoetter) of Power in World Politics (Routledge 2007) and the author of NATO, Security and Risk Management: From Kosovo to Khandahar (Routledge, 2008). He is currently preparing a book manuscript for Hurst & Co exploring international security and risk through the prism of NATO’s experience in Afghanistan.

Dr Williams currently teaches a graduate course on diplomacy at the University of London and has taught political science and specialist courses on international security issues at the Free University of Berlin, King’s College London and the London School of Economics. He has lectured for the Royal Danish Naval Academy, the Defence Studies Unit at the University of Southampton, and Pembroke College, University of Cambridge.

Before coming to RUSI, Dr. Williams was Programme Officer for the Oxford-Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War at the University of Oxford. Previously he worked in the Political Section of the US Embassy in London and in the office of US Senator Joseph R Biden Jr (D-DE). Dr. Williams was editor of Millennium: Journal of International Studies volume 33 and associate editor of volume 34.

Educated at the universities of Delaware, Hamburg, Bath, Moscow, Berlin, and London, he holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

He is a native of Connecticut.