Paul O’Neill CBE

Paul O’Neill's research interests cover national security strategy, NATO, and organisational aspects of Defence and security, including organisational design, human resources, professional military education and decision-making. He was the editor of the national security council compendium ‘Securing the State and Its Citizens’ (Bloomsbury, 2022) and co-hosts the RUSI Talking Strategy Podcast series with Professor Beatrice Heuser.

Previously, Paul was a Royal Air Force officer working in strategy and human resources roles across Defence including in the Ministry of Defence Head Office. His career included commanding the Defence School of Personnel Administration, leading the military team working on the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review and latterly as the Head of Defence People Strategy. He has undertaken operational tours in Iraq, Northern Ireland, Oman, Turkey and Afghanistan where he was the Senior Advisor on Strategy and Policy to the Afghan Ministry of Interior.

Paul has a Bachelor’s in Laws, a post-graduate diploma in Personnel Management and Master’s degrees in Laws, Defence Studies and International Relations. He has been a Chief of the Air Staff Fellow at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford and is a visiting professor at the University of Winchester. He is a Companion of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

He was appointed a CBE in the New Year’s Honour List 2021.

Security in Northern Europe in the Biden Era Redesigning Multilateralism - 'Global Britain: A New Era in Transatlantic Relations?' Paul O’Neill, CSIS, April 29, 2021

'The Global Pandemic, Transatlantic Security and National Defence', Johannes Gullestad Rø, Ingeborg Bjur, Karen-Anna Eggen and Robin Allers (eds.) IFS Insight, 2020