BEN CONNABLE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Ben Connable, PhD, is the executive director of the Battle Research Group. He also is adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University, an on-call principal research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, and an advisor to a peace and development institute. Ben is a retired Marine Corps intelligence and Middle East foreign area officer, former senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, and an advisor to several boards. Ben earned his PhD in War Studies from King’s College London.
JAMES SLADDEN
Field RESEARCH DIRECTOR
James Sladden is an historian, conflict researcher and and was the lead author of the Battle of Irpin River – an oral history of the fight for north west Kyiv. As a writer and journalist, he has published on drones and crowd-funded aid convoys in Ukraine, winning Feature of the Year in the 2024 NCTJ Awards for Excellence. He has worked as a high-risk adviser to international media, including the BBC, CNN and ITN, and as an international monitoring officer for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine. James is a former RAND Corporation researcher and a current PhD candidate in History at the University of Cambridge. He received a master’s degree from the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter, where he was an Excellence Scholar. Prior to this James served in the British military.
ANDREW SIMMS
CHIEF EDITOR
Andrew Simms is an award-winning feature writer and magazine editor, who has reported from the front line in Kosovo, Macedonia and Afghanistan, and in 2003 was embedded with British troops in Iraq.
Formerly the editor-in-chief of Soldier, the official magazine of the British Army, he was named New Editor of the Year in 2007 by the Association of Communicators in Business, short-listed as Editor of the Year by the British Society of Magazine Editors in 2008 and 2007 and guided the title to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ Best internal magazine in Britain award in 2011, 2010 and 2009 and the Institute of Internal Communications’ Best internal news magazine accolade in 2011 and 2010.
Andrew also provides editorial support to the British Army's Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research, managing the think tank's portfolio of print and digital assets; which includes the editorship of The British Army Review.