About

Khem Rogaly researches the political economy of the military industrial complex and its role in the climate crisis. He coordinates the day-to-day research programmes of Transition Security Project. Khem is also Principal Research Fellow at Common Wealth where he has led work on militaries and their associated industries since 2022, including trade union-facing research on industrial conversion. His work has been featured widely in the international press and broadcast media.

Patrick Bigger is a leading scholar of the intersections between war and the climate crisis. He is also Research Director at Climate and Community Institute (CCI) where he heads their research department. Patrick was previously a Lecturer in Economic Geography at Lancaster University and holds a PhD from the University of Kentucky. He has written widely in academic journals and popular outlets. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages and covered globally.

Lorah Steichen researches climate, militarism and global political economy. She is the Global Systems and Policy Manager at CCI where she also works on international financial systems. Lorah has previously worked at the National Priorities Project at the Institute of Policy Studies and the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program.

Brian Salisbury was involved in developing and promoting the Lucas Plan in the 1970s. The Lucas Plan advocated for a transition from arms production to the production of socially useful goods at Lucas Aerospace.

Kelsey Coolidge provides strategic direction for the War Prevention Initiative’s work on environment, climate change and conflict. She is the managing director of the Peace Science Digest.

Alex Gordon is a trade union and peace activist. Alex is currently a Vice-President of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and was a contributing author to the Alternative Defence Review.

Adam Hanieh is the author of several books on Middle East politics, oil and capitalism, including Crude Capitalism and (with Rafeef Ziadah and Robert Knox) Resisting Erasure.

Priyanka Mohanty leads a United Auto Workers centre that recruits and trains workers for careers in green manufacturing. She has a decade of experience in the climate movement, including at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the New Climate Economy initiative.

Christine Oliver works at a foundation focused on environmental sustainability and peace, supporting work that tackles the intersections of climate crisis and human security. Christine practiced immigration, asylum and human rights law for fifteen years.

Ilias Alami writes about state capitalism, geopolitics, the green transition, global finance and racial capitalism. He is the author of Money Power and Financial Capital in Emerging Markets.

Samar Al-Bulushi is the author of War-Making as Worldmaking. Her analysis on AFRICOM and the militarisation of US policy in Africa has been featured in a range of public outlets including Teen Vogue, The Intercept and Democracy Now!.

Mona Ali works on international political economy and the global dollar system. She is writing a book on the weaponisation of the dollar.

Theresa (Isa) Arriola works at an indigenous-led environmental justice law firm in Guam. She chairs Our Common Wealth, which educates the community about military planning in the Marianas. Theresa researches militarisation and was previously Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University.

Karen Bell led the British Academy-funded project Decarbonising and Diversifying Defence: A Worker’s Enquiry for a Just Transition and was the editor of the Alternative Defence Review, a civil society initiative reimagining security beyond militarism.

Michael Brenes is the author and editor of three books on the history and present of US power: For Might and Right, Rethinking US Power and The Rivalry Peril. He writes widely, including in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. 

Nick Buxton coordinates the Transnational Institute’s research on climate and militarism and helps facilitate the international working group on Arms, Militarism and Climate Justice. He is co-editor of The Secure and the Dispossessed.

Charmaine Chua is a scholar and organiser focused on labour in global supply chains. Charmaine’s two forthcoming books examine the intersection of logistics’ rise with decolonisation, and Amazon’s corporate strategy. She is an internationalist labour organiser and has been named a Freedom Scholar.

Rebekah Diski is a writer and researcher working on questions of labour, nationalism and environmental breakdown. Her PhD research focuses on the ecological politics of trade unions. She formerly worked at the New Economics Foundation.

Mark Griffiths is a political geographer interested in military ecologies. Mark writes widely on house demolitions, military checkpoints, bureaucratic mechanisms, weapons manufacturing and war-affected environments.

Bill Hartung specialises in the politics of Pentagon spending and the operations of weapons makers. He is the author of several books on the US military industrial complex.

Hebah Kassem is a strategist with over a decade of experience at the intersections of climate justice, industrial policy, trade, public health, human rights, and demilitarisation.

Laleh Khalili is the author or editor of seven books including Sinews of War and Trade, Policing and Prisons in the Middle East and Extractive Capitalism.

Shana Marshall is the co-organiser of a project on global capitalism and transnational war economies at Security in Context. Her research examines the role of private equity and venture capital in militarising tech firms.

Benjamin researches the US military as a global climate actor and the environmental footprints of the world’s militaries. He is leading a new grant on military critical mineral supply chains and decarbonisation.

Heidi Peltier is an economist who specialises in the economic impacts of public spending, with particular attention to military spending and clean energy policy. She has written extensively on the limited employment impacts of military spending.

Zaynab Quadri analyses the history and politics of US warmaking. Her forthcoming book Empire by Contract examines the history of private military contracting from World War II to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

Kali Rubaii researches displacement, war-impacted ecologies and environmental health justice. Through forensic ethnography, Kali’s work investigates the violent material impact of war and extractive industry on people’s lives. Kali is currently leading two projects in post-invasion Iraq.

Stephen Semler works to align US policies with working-class interests. He is author of the Polygraph newsletter on Substack, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and an expert with Forum on the Arms Trade.

Anna Stavrianakis researches and teaches about the international arms trade. She is also Director of Research and Strategy at Shadow World Investigations, which uncovers corruption in the arms industry.

David Vine is a political anthropologist and author of several books about war and peace, including The United States of War, Base Nation and Island of Shame.

David Wearing researches UK foreign relations, particularly in the Middle East, and their roots in colonial history. He is the author of AngloArabia.