Dr William James

Dr William James joined the Centre for Grand Strategy as an Ax:son Johnson Research Fellow in August 2022. He is also a Senior Associate of the Oxford Changing Character of War Centre. William holds a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford.

Between 2018 and 2020, William was based in the United States as a research fellow at MIT’s Security Studies Program and at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. In 2020-21, he was a non-resident Hans J. Morgenthau fellow at the University of Notre Dame.

William’s first book, British Grand Strategy in the Age of American Hegemony, will be published by Oxford University Press in early 2024. His work has also been published in journals such as the European Journal of International Security and International Politics, as well as outlets such as War on the Rocks and Engelsberg Ideas.

One of his goals is to produce academically rigorous research which is accessible and useful for policymakers. He regularly provides support and historically informed analyses to civil servants and the armed forces. William has also contributed evidence to three parliamentary inquiries on British foreign policy.

In December 2020, William won the Royal United Services Institute's Trench Gascoigne essay competition for original writing on defence and security. The essay was subsequently published in the RUSI Journal.

Research Interests

• Grand strategy
• Great power retrenchment
• UK foreign & defence policy
• Transatlantic relations
• European security
• Alliance politics

Publications

Books:

• British Grand Strategy in the Age of American Hegemony (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024)

Book chapters:

• ‘Grand strategy and the challenge of change’ in The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy, edited by Ronald R. Krebs and Thierry Balzacq (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021)

Journal articles:

• ‘Influencing the United States: is the game worth the candle for junior allies?’, International Politics, 59:6 (2022)
• ‘Global Britain’s strategic problem East of Suez’, European Journal of International Security, 6:2 (2021)
• ‘Between a pandemic and a hard Brexit: grand strategic thinking in an age of nationalism, renewed geopolitical competition and human insecurity’, RUSI Journal, 165:7 (2020)
• ‘Grandiose strategy? Refining the study and practice of grand strategy’, RUSI Journal, 165:3 (2020)

Recent policy papers:

• ‘Tailored, tokenistic, or too much? Assessing the Royal Navy’s presence in the Indo-Pacific’, Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (February 2023)
• ‘The challenge of grand strategic implementation’, report for the ‘Forum on Future British Strategy’, UK Cabinet Office & Centre for Grand Strategy, King’s College London (November 2020)
• Written evidence to the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee for its inquiry into HM Government’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy (June 2020). The evidence was cited in the committee’s report, ‘A brave new Britain? The future of the UK’s international policy’ (October 2020).

Recent media articles:

• ‘What is the British Army for?’, Engelsberg Ideas (March 2023)
• ‘There and Back Again: The Fall and Rise of Britain’s “East of Suez” Basing Strategy’, War on the Rocks (February 2021)
• ‘Biden time for the transatlantic relationship?’, The UK in a Changing Europe (November 2020)
• ‘NATO is about to become a political football in the UK election’, The UK in a Changing Europe (December 2019)

Recent book reviews:

• ​Review of Rivals in arms: the rise of UK–France defence relations in the twenty-first century by Alice Pannier, International Affairs, 98:2 (2022)
• Review of Comparative Grand Strategy: A Framework and Cases by Thierry Balzacq, Peter Dombrowski and Simon Reich (eds.), International Affairs, 96:1 (2020)