Professor Paul Cornish

College position: Fellow Commoner

Subject: International Security and Strategic Studies

Professor Paul Cornish is a Fellow Commoner at Magdalene.

Paul Cornish is a graduate of St Andrews, the London School of Economics and Cambridge. He began his career in the British Army before joining the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as an arms control and disarmament research analyst. He has worked in UK research institutes and universities, holding several executive and professorial appointments at Chatham House, the UK Defence Academy, the Centre for Defence Studies, the Conflict, Security & Development Group, RAND Corporation Europe, and the Universities of Cambridge, King's College London, Bath, Exeter and the Australian National University.

He has worked on behalf of the UK Parliament and the security and defence policy community in the UK, Europe and the United States. He became a member of the UK Chief of the Defence Staff's Strategic Advisory Panel in 2009, was a founding Co-Director of the Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre at the University of Oxford in 2013, and in 2017 was Professorial Fellow in Cyber Security at the National Security College, Australian National University. He is a commentator on many aspects of international security and defence policy in national and international broadcast, print and online media, as well as in academic publications. He has travelled extensively, undertaking work in Canada, the United States, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Australia, China, Uruguay, Jamaica, Russia, Japan, South Africa, Malaysia, Ghana, Israel, Cyprus and Tanzania.

Research Interests

  • The politics and ethics of the use of armed force
  • UK defence and security policy
  • Arms control
  • Cyber security
  • Defence and security implications of geopolitical change

Qualifications

MA (Hons) History, University of St Andrews
MSc (Econ), London School of Economics
PhD (Strategic History), Magdalene College, University of Cambridge

Professional Affiliations

  • Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS)

KEY PUBLICATIONS

Cyber Security: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2026.

What the Octopus Knew: Essays on Strategy & Defence. Substack, 2023-present.

Afghanistan: a Strategic Failure of Vision, Resource and Patience. In B. Brivati (ed.), Losing Afghanistan: the Fall of Kabul and the End of Western Intervention. Biteback Publishing, February 2022.

The Oxford Handbook of Cyber Security. Edited by Paul Cornish. Oxford University Press, 2021.

Deterrence and the Ethics of Cyber Conflict. In M. Taddeo (ed.), Ethics and Policies for Cyber Operations: A NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence Initiative. London: Springer, 2017.

2020: World of War. K. Donaldson. Hodder & Stoughton, 2017.

Governing Cyberspace through Constructive Ambiguity. Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, 57, no. 3, June-July 2015.

Strategic Culture in the United Kingdom. In H. Biehl, B. Giegerich and A. Jonas (eds), Strategic Cultures in Europe: Security and Defence Policies Across the Continent. Springer VS, 2013.

Digital Détente: Managing the Cyber Confrontation between China and the West. Public Interest Report. Washington, D.C.: Federation of American Scientists, September 2012.

The Ethics of “Effects-Based Operations”: the Crowding Out of jus in bello?. In C. Reed and D. Ryall (eds), The Price of Peace: Just War in the Twenty First Century. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Britain and Security. Edited by Paul Cornish. London: Smith Institute, 2007.

Learning New Lessons: the British Army and the Strategic Debate, 1945-50. In H. Strachan (ed.), Big Wars and Small Wars: the British Army and the Lessons of War in the 20th Century. Routledge, 2006.

The Conflict in Iraq, 2003. Edited by Paul Cornish. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

British Military Planning for the Defence of Germany, 1945-50. Macmillan, 1996.