Dr James Johnson

Honorary Visiting Fellow

Twitter: @James_SJohnson

Website: http://www.jamesjohnsonphd.com

Personal details

BA (Bristol)
MA (Leeds)
PhD (Leicester)

I joined the School as an Honorary Visiting Fellow in July 2017. I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Monterey (USA). I recently completed my PhD at Leicester, which applied the ‘Security Dilemma’ theoretical lens to examine Sino-American security relations during the Obama Presidency. My latest projects focus on three interrelated multidisciplinary themes: (1) ‘New’ security challenges posed by emerging technologies - especially artificial intelligence; (2) developing theoretical frameworks to conceptualize shifting great and rising power dynamics in world politics and; (3) US policy responses to rising powers in a multipolar world order. These themes are developed in my book, The US-China Military & Defense Relationship during the Obama Presidency. My latest book project is entitled The AI Revolution & the Future of Warfare: Great Power Competition & Strategic Stability.

Selected Publications

Book

'The AI Revolution & the Future of Warfare: Great Power Competition & Strategic Stability' (Oxford University Press & Manchester University Press, forthcoming).
‘The U.S.-China Military & Defense Relationship during the Obama Presidency’ (Palgrave Macmillan, ‘New Security Challenges Series’ 2018).

Journal articles

‘Artificial Intelligence in Future Hyper-Warfare: A Perfect Storm of Instability?’ The Washington Quarterly (Spring 2020).
‘Artificial Intelligence: A Threat to Strategic Stability,’ Strategic Studies Quarterly (Spring 2020).
‘AI, Drone Swarming, & Escalation Risks in Future Warfare,’ RUSI Journal (Spring 2020).
‘The AI-Cyber Nexus: Implications for Military Escalation, Deterrence, & Strategic Stability,’ The Journal of Cyber Policy (Chatham House), Vol. 4, Issue 3 (2019): 442-460.
‘The End of Military-Techno Pax Americana? Washington’s Strategic Responses to Chinese AI-enabled military Technology,’ The Pacific Review (Published online, October 2019).
‘Artificial Intelligence & Future Warfare': Implications for International Security,’ Defense & Security Analysis, Vol. 35, Issue 2 (2019): 147-169
‘China’s Vision of the Future Network-Centric Battlefield: Cyber, Space & Electromagnetic Asymmetric Challenges to the U.S.,’ Comparative Strategy, Vol. 37, Issue 5 (2019): 373-390.
‘Chinese Nuclear ‘Warfighting:’ An Emerging Intense U.S.-China Security Dilemma and Threats to Crisis Stability in the Asia Pacific,’ Asian Security, Vol. 15, Issue 3 (2019): 215-232.
‘China’s ‘Guam Express’ and ‘Carrier Killers’: The Anti-Ship Asymmetric Challenge to the U.S. in the Western Pacific, and Security Dilemma Explanations,’ Comparative Strategy, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2017): 319-332.
‘Washington’s Perceptions and Misperceptions of Beijing’s Anti-access Area-denial (A2/AD) ‘Strategy’: Implications for Military Escalation Control and Strategic Stability,’ The Pacific Review, Vol. 20, Issue 3 (2017): 271-288.

Book chapters

‘Emerging Technologies and China’s Challenge to US Innovation Leadership,’ in Reuben Steff, Simone Soare, and Joe Bortun (ed), Emerging Technologies and International Security: Machines, the State and War, Routledge (forthcoming, 2020).
‘The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Strategic Stability, Escalation, & Nuclear security,’ in Sam Dudin and Chelsey Wiley (ed), The 2019 UK PONI Papers, Royal United Services Institute (December, 2019).
‘The Incumbent Unipole and its Allies: Multipolar Challenges to U.S. Dominance in Artificial Intelligence’, in Benjamin Zala (ed), Interrogating a Multipolar Order: The Use of Multipolar Narratives in National Contexts (Forthcoming, 2020).
‘China’s Nuclear Modernisation: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Doctrine, Strategic Ambiguities and Implications for Sino-U.S. Relations’, in M Kouhi-Esfahani (eds), Nuclear politics in Asia (Routledge, 2018) co-authored with Dr. Andrew Futter.

Selected professional publications

‘How Might AI Affect the Cyberspace Threat Environment?’ War on the Rocks, January 2020 - with Eleanor Krabill
‘Is the US losing the artificial intelligence arms race?’ - The Conversation, October 2019.
‘China and the US are Racing to Develop AI Weapons,’ - The Conversation, June 2018.
"China’s Evolving Approach to Nuclear War-Fighting” - The Diplomat, November 2017.

"If Trump is bluffing on North Korea, the results could be catastrophic” - The Conversation, August 2017.

‘The Shadow of an Unrestrainable Military-Technological Security Dilemma: U.S.-China relations at a dangerous crossroads’ - Think Leicester, July 2017.
‘Is China Moving Towards a Nuclear ‘War-Fighting’ Posture?’ The Institute of Asia & Pacific Studies (IAPS), University of Nottingham, June 2017.
‘High-tech China-US arms race threatens to destabilize East Asia’- The Conversation, May 2017.
‘China’s Vision of the Future Networked Battlefield: Cyber, Space and Electronic Warfare Challenges to the US in the Western Pacific’ - The Diplomat, April 2017.
‘China’s Missiles Threaten New Arms Race’ - Newsweek, March 2017.
‘China’s anti-ship missiles threaten an arms race in the Western Pacific’ - The Conversation, March 2017.
‘China's new missile could threaten an arms war in the Pacific’ - The Business Insider, March 2017.
‘Is China moving towards a nuclear ‘Warfighting’ posture?’ - The Conversation, February 2017.
‘Nuclear No First Use and President Obama’s Legacy’ - Think Leicester Interdisciplinary Research Project at the University of Leicester, August 2016 - with Dr. Andrew Futter.

Research Interests

Nuclear deterrence & strategic stability
Sino-US defense relations
Emerging technology (especially AI)
Cyber-nuclear nexus
Chinese nuclear doctrine
East Asia security

Supervision

I am interested in supervising projects in the broad areas of Security & Strategic Studies, Emerging Technology & Future Warfare, U.S.-China Relations, Rising Powers, Nuclear Strategy, Chinese Foreign Policy, and East Asian Security.