Dr. Michael Rouland is Senior Strategic Advisor and Director of Research at the Russia Strategic Initiative, US European Command where he oversees a comprehensive and diverse program that supports the entire Department of Defense and a global network of over 350 academic experts to provide strategic perspective on Russia. He actively works across multi-national, allied, interagency, and defense organizations to synchronize efforts, build consensus, and initiate broad institutional investments to support departmental priorities related to Russia.

Rouland personally writes and delivers timely technical expertise, works across multiple NATO and partner organizations, in order to drive national and international research efforts, inform national security and defense strategies, and contribute to government policies, plans, and objectives for all issues related to Russia. He previously served as Senior Historian and Special Advisor for the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, specializing in research on Russia, China, Central Asia, and the global integration of the joint force. He served as Senior Historian and Special Advisor for the Chief of Staff of the Army. In that role, he provided direct historical and analytical support to the Army’s senior leaders and participated in multiple service-wide and multi-national working groups, including the U.S. Army’s European Strategy Assessment Team, the Mosul Study Group, and the Raqqah Study Group, to tackle the Army’s most important challenges. Dr. Rouland completed a combat tour at Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan. He has written multiple studies for service leadership, including the publicly-released studies Great Game to 9/11: A Concise History of Afghanistan’s International Relations (2014), What the Battle for Mosul Teaches the Force (2017), and What the Battle for Raqqah Teaches the Force (2018). He currently writes a series of analytical essays and weekly summaries on the most relevant Russian geostrategic challenges for the Department of Defense.

Dr. Rouland holds degrees in History and Russian from Duke University and a Ph.D. in Russian history from Georgetown University. He leads courses on Russian studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.