Thomas is a lecturer in Defence Studies whose primary specialism is US foreign policy and the history of ideas. He is currently working on a book on the intellectual history of the U.S. Army’s Active Defense and AirLand Battle doctrines, as articulated by officers at the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). This book examines how TRADOC conceptualized initiative, synchronization, flexibility, and depth in doctrine, and in doing so, constructed a form of individualism and creativity in the Army’s combat employment. Going forward, the next project concerns the conceptual history of stability in US perceptions of world order and in individuals during the 1940s to 1960s. 

Previously, he taught contemporary U.S. politics & US imperial history at UCL's Institute of the Americas, and international politics and foreign policy analysis at City, University of London.

Research Interests

• US foreign, defense, and security policy
• Hegemony studies
• History of doctrine and the US Army
• History of ideas
• History of military psychiatry and medicine

Publications

• "Democracy in Karl Kautsky's theory of ultra-imperialism," Thesis Eleven

• "Political theory and the CIA in the US imperium," [Review Article], Intelligence and National Security

• "Fighting Smart: Living Systems Theory in the US Army's Strategic Thought," Modern Intellectual History

• "Changing the guard: Organizational science and social psychology in the US army," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences

• "The Trump administration, the far-right, and world politics," Globalizations [with Inderjeet Parmar]

• "The political economy of US maritime strategy in the Indo-Pacific," Pacific Review

• "'Let us go out to the Field': Apocalyptic Thinking in Christian Nationalism," Politics, Religion & Ideology

• "Forward to the 1980s: US Strategic Trade in the World Order," International Politics

Dr Furse is open to supervising PhD students in US foreign and security policy (contemporary and post-1945), world order & hegemony, history of counterinsurgency, diplomatic and military histories of the Americas.