Niklas Nilsson

Niklas Nilsson joined the American Foreign Policy Council as a Visiting Fellow in December 2025. He is a Senior Research Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, and Associate Editor of the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, the Joint Center's bi-weekly publication. Nilsson is also an Associate Professor in War Studies at the Department of War Studies and the Centre for Societal Security, Swedish Defence University.

His research interests include international politics and security in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, hybrid threats and hybrid warfare, intelligence, and military operations and tactics.

Nilsson was a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University and spent longer stays as a Visiting Researcher at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, Tbilisi, Georgia and at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine.

Major recent publications include the (co-)edited volumes “Hybrid Warfare: Security and Asymmetric Conflict in International Relations” (2021, I.B. Tauris), “Advanced Land Warfare: Tactics and Operations” (2023, Oxford University Press), “Russian Warfare and Influence: States in the Intersection between the East and West” (2024, Bloomsbury Academic), and “Russia’s War in Ukraine and Modern Warfare: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology” (forthcoming 2026, Oxford University Press).