Dr Tom Watts
About
Dr Tom Watts is a Research Fellow at the Conflict Analysis Research Centre, University of Kent. Since the submission of his PhD in September 2018, he has worked as a Teaching Fellow in War and Security at Royal Holloway, University of London. Here, he has convened the popular International Organisations (PR2580), International Security (PR5924) and Understanding Defence (PR5937) courses. He previously taught at the University of Kent winning two teaching prizes: the British International Studies Association Postgraduate Excellence in Teaching International Studies Prize (2018) & the University of Kent Social Sciences Seminar Leader Teaching Prize Winner (2017).
Tom’s primary research interests are Remote Warfare, the changing character of Western military intervention and historical materialist informed approaches to contemporary American foreign (and counterterrorism) policy. His PhD examined what the Obama administration’s military response against al-Qaeda’s regional affiliates in the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa and the Sahel reveals about the means and goals of contemporary US counterterrorism policy. Alongside the Remote Warfare Programme think-tank and Dr Rubrick Biegon, Tom has co-conveyed two international events aimed at developing the academic and policy understanding of Remote Warfare: (1) the two-day ‘Remote Warfare: Past, Present and Future’ conference at the University of Kent; and (2) the two-day ‘Strangeness and Familiarity in European Approaches to Remote Warfare’ workshop in Brussels. In addition to a book manuscript proposal on the evolution of Remote Warfare from the George W. Bush to the Trump presidencies, Tom is currently working on two major projects. The first is a Special Issue co-edited with Dr Vladimir Rauta and Dr Rubrick Biegon which develops and situates the concept of Remote Warfare within the scholarly debates on Political Violence in the Twenty-First Century. The second is a study of Remote Warfare in an era of Great Power competition with Dr Rubrick Biegon.