I’m a British expert on American foreign policy and politics who knocks around in academic, policy and media spheres in Europe and in the U.S. My mission is simple - to explain important events in American politics and foreign policy to an international audience and any Americans who are interested in my perspective.
In my day job I’m an academic at Leiden University in The Netherlands. I wrote a book about the failure of American nation-building in the Vietnam War and I’m about to start a new research project on post-war American foreign policy funded by a nearly €1m grant. Apart from this I’ve done all sorts of stuff - I was a civil servant in the UK Cabinet Office, an international security researcher at Harvard, a consultant for private companies trying to understand American foreign policy, an academic who taught British military officers, and a pundit everywhere from Foreign Affairs and Stars and Stripes to The Scranton Times Tribune (hey, I’ve gotta try to get the president’s attention somehow). The places I write most regularly are The Guardian and here on this Substack.
