These presentations unite operational experience with rigorous scholarship. Deployments to Mali in 2015 and 2016 provided first-hand insight into how non-state armed groups organise, govern, finance, and fight. Subsequent academic work analyses insurgent organisation, revenue systems, governing structures and their use of force to compete with states. Together, this portfolio translates field evidence and academic theory into decision-focused guidance for diverse audiences by clarifying drivers of resistance, identifying indicators of convergence towards proto-statehood, and outlining conditions under which policy interventions can address root causes of conflict, deny incentives for resistance and shift conflict outcomes.

These presentations offer a strategic-level analysis of the Russo-Ukrainian war through a Clausewitzian lens. They examine the alignment of political ends, ways, and means, centres of gravity, culminating points, and escalation dynamics affected Russian strategy. By integrating the peculiarities of Russian strategic culture and Russia’s conduct of war and warfare, the brief provides a distinctly Russian perspective on the conflict. Based on peer-reviewed publications on Russian strategy, this presentation uses Clausewitzian thought to provide a practical understanding of Russian strategy in Ukraine.