Thomas Rid

In 2016 and 2020 he authored books How Russia Pulled Off the Biggest Election Hack in U.S. History and Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare about Soviet and Russian active measures.

From 2011 to 2016 he researched and taught at the Department of War Studies at King’s College. In 2016, he became a professor of strategic studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University.

In October 2011 the Journal of Strategic Studies, a leading international relations journal, published his provocatively titled article, "Cyber War Will Not Take Place". The text argued that all politically motivated cyber attacks are merely sophisticated versions of sabotage, espionage, or subversion—but not war. In a review of his 2013 book with the same title, The Economist considered Rid "one of Britain’s leading authorities on, and sceptics about, cyber-warfare".

In 2006-2007 Rid was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut français des relations internationales (Ifri), a Paris-based think tank dedicated to international affairs. In 2007-2008 he was a postdoc at the RAND Corporation, at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, and in 2009 a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 2009 and 2010 Rid was in Israel conducting research as a visiting scholar at the Hebrew University and at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. In 2010 to 2011, he was fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Constance in Germany.

Rid grew up in rural region of Hegau close to Lake Constance and the Swiss-German border. In 1994 he graduated (Abitur) from the Nellenburg-Gymnasium in Stockach. From 1997 to 2002 he studied social and political science (with Herfried Münkler) at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and for one year at the London School of Economics. From 2003 to 2005 he was a Fritz-Thyssen-Scholar with the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Germany’s major government-funded foreign policy think tank, where he wrote his dissertation and first book. He received his Ph.D. from Humboldt University of Berlin in 2006.

Thomas Rid (born 1975 in Aach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany) is a political scientist best known for his work on the history and risks of information technology in conflict. He is Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Previously he was a professor of security studies in the Department of War Studies, Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy King’s College in London.