Dr Daniel Salisbury

Dr Daniel Salisbury is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Science & Security Studies (CSSS) within the Department of War Studies. Until April 2023, he was a Senior Research Fellow at CSSS and undertook a three-year Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship at the Centre on arms embargoes. Dr Salisbury is also an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). He also previously held positions at the Henry L Stimson Center, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, CSSS and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Dr Salisbury is the author of Secrecy, Public Relations and the British Nuclear Debate: How the UK Government Learned to Talk about the Bomb, 1970-1983 (Routledge Cold War History series, 2020). He is also the author or co-author of a wide range of journal articles, book chapters and reports, and the co-editor of books on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and UN Security Council resolution 1540.

Dr Salisbury has acted as a Subject Matter Expert at over 40 sanctions, export control and nuclear security control capacity building workshops in around 20 jurisdictions around the world. He holds a PhD in War Studies, an MA in Science and Security and a BA in War Studies from King’s College London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), sits on the editorial board of the Strategic Trade Review and became an Associate of King’s College London (AKC) in 2010.

Research

• Illicit trade and proliferation networks
• Arms embargoes
• Sanctions and export controls
• Cold War history
• British nuclear history
• Nuclear security
• Nonproliferation
• Nuclear and missile programmes

Dr Salisbury's research interests encompass a number of areas: nuclear and intelligence history, nuclear and conventional arms proliferation, countering illicit networks and preventing nuclear terrorism. His three-year Leverhulme Trust research project sought to situate his research on illicit trade and proliferation networks within a broader picture of technology and arms transfers, defence industrial base issues and great power politics during the Cold War.

Publications

Books

• Secrecy, Public Relations and the British Nuclear Debate: How the UK Government Learned to Talk About the Bomb, 1970-1983 (UK: Routledge, 2020).
• Preventing the Proliferation of WMDs: Measuring the Success of UN Security Council Resolution 1540 (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) [Co-edited with Ian Stewart and Andrea Viski]
• Open Source Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century: New Approaches and Opportunities (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) [Co-edited with Matthew Moran and Christopher Hobbs]

Book chapters

• ‘The Downsides of the Supply-Side? The Underappreciated Costs and the Unintended Consequences of Supply-Side Nonproliferation Measures’ in David Arceneaux, Stephen Herzog and Ariel Petrovics eds. Atomic Backfires: Why Nuclear Policies Fail (Forthcoming 2024)
• ‘The United Nations Security Council and the 1540 Committee’ in The Oxford Handbook of Nuclear Security (2023) [Ben Kienzle and Daniel Salisbury]

Research articles

• ‘Murder on Waterloo Bridge: placing the assassination of Georgi Markov in past and present context, 1970 – 2018’, Contemporary British History 37, no.1 (2023) [Daniel Salisbury and Karl Dewey]
• ‘Countering a Technological Berlin Tunnel: North Korean Operatives, Helicopters and Intelligence in the Cold War Illicit Arms Trade, 1981-1986’, Intelligence and National Security 37, no.5 (2022)
• ‘Of Moles and Missiles: Anatomy of a North Korean Arms Deal?’, Nonproliferation Review 28, no.2-3 (2022)
• ‘Spies, Diplomats and Deceit: Exploring the Persistent Role of Diplomatic Missions in North Korea’s WMD Proliferation and Arms Trafficking Networks’ Asian Security 17, no.3 (2021)
• ‘Arming Iran from the Heart of Westminster? The Iranian Military Procurement Offices, Rumours and Intelligence, 1981-1987’, Intelligence and National Security 35, No.7 (2020)

Policy papers

• ‘Profiting from Proliferation? North Korea’s Exports of Missile and Nuclear Technology’ (with Darya Dolzikova). RUSI Occasional Paper (December 2023)
• ‘Clipped Wings? The Impact of Arms Embargoes on Russian Air Power in Ukraine and Beyond’, Freeman Air and Space Institute (FASI) Paper (February 2023)
• ‘From Missions to Missiles: North Korea’s Diplomats and Sanctions-Busting’, RUSI Emerging Insights Report (14 November 2022)
• ‘The Long Arm: How U.S. Law Enforcement Expanded its Extraterritorial Reach to Counter WMD Proliferation Networks’ (with Aaron Arnold). Belfer Center/Managing the Atom Paper (February 2019)

Media articles

• ‘North Korea’s Diplomatic Sanctions-Busting Network Adapts to Changing Times’, RUSI Commentary (22 November 2023)
• ‘You Have to Be There: On Site Visits in International Nuclear Security Engagement’, Stanley Center for Peace and Security Adventures in Nuclear Risk Reduction series (17 April 2023)
• ‘Triple Threat: Russia, Iran and North Korea trade arms to get around sanctions’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (28 December 2022) [Darya Dolzikova and Daniel Salisbury]
• ‘Can the Private Sector Help Cut Russia’s Silicon Lifeline?’, RUSI Commentary (18 August 2022)
• ‘Will North Korea Sell Its Nuclear Technology?’, Scientific American (25 September 2017)

Further details

See Dr Salisbury's research profile.