Author: Joris van Bladel
Alternate names: Joris Jozef Elisabeth Van Bladel; J.J.E. van Bladel
Born: 30 juni 1966, Lier BE
Bio: . https://www.egmontinstitute.be/staff/joris-van-bladel/

Dr. Joris Van Bladel is Senior Associate Fellow in the ‘Europe in the World’ programme at the Egmont – Royal Institute for International Relations. He studied Social and Military Sciences at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels and Slavic Languages and Eastern European Cultures at Ghent University and holds a PhD in Arts from the University of Groningen. His doctoral research, The All-volunteer Force in the Russian Mirror: Transformation without Change (2004), explored the persistence of military traditions in post-Soviet Russia.

Throughout and after his military career (1985–2006), he taught and lectured at institutions including the Royal Military Academy, Ghent University, the University of Amsterdam, Uppsala University, and the Technical University of Berlin. He has held research positions at the Center for Russian and East European Studies (University of Toronto) and at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin.

His work focuses on Russian (military) culture, strategic thinking, the role of the armed forces in society, and long-term threat assessment, with a particular emphasis on sociological developments. He regularly comments in the media on these issues.

In 2025, he published Land van het Grote Sterven: Hoe Rusland de Westerse logica tart (Prometheus), a widely discussed book that explores the enduring patterns of Russian military thinking and their impact on Western perceptions.
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