David Blagden

Dr David Blagden is an Associate Professor of International Security and Strategy at the University of Exeter. He is Programme Director of the MSc in Global Security Studies and holds affiliations as a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, Senior Associate Fellow of the NATO Defense College, and Visiting Fellow of the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre.

• Education: BA (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) and DPhil (International Relations) from the University of Oxford, MA (International Relations) from the University of Chicago.

Research Interests include:

• The causes and consequences of the rise of new great powers.
• UK/allied foreign and defence policy in European geopolitics and multipolarity.
• Major-power cooperation on global challenges like climate change.
• Security implications of economic globalization.
• Nuclear strategy (deterrence, coercion, disarmament/rearmament).
• Navies and sea power dynamics.
• Domestic political/economic pressures on strategic behavior.
• Realist international relations theory (war causation, balancing, offence-defence).
• Philosophy of science in international-political thought.

Scientific Awards:

• Royal United Services Institute’s Trench Gascoigne Prize for original writing on defence and security.
• Adrian Research Fellow in International Politics at Darwin College, University of Cambridge.

Advising and Grants: Dr Blagden supervises MPhil/PhD students in his research areas. His work has been funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Leverhulme Trust, and UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL).

Media and Government Engagement: He contributes to television and radio analysis (BBC, Bloomberg), writes for The Guardian, The Spectator, and New Statesman, and provides expert evidence to UK Parliamentary Select Committees and HM Government policy reviews. He also participates in track-two diplomacy and consults for government agencies, military commands, think-tanks, and private firms.