About James

I graduated in European Studies and Russian from Wolverhampton Polytechnic and, much more recently, Peace and Conflict Resolution from the University of Queensland in Australia. For most of my career I have worked in Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Since 2001 I have been seconded by the FCO to three OSCE missions and to the Council of Europe to work on democratisation, conflict prevention and good governance programmes.

I am currently working for the Stabilisation Unit, a new tri-departmental unit comprised of FCO, DFID and MoD. I am one of two Stabilisation Advisors based in Musa Qal'eh in Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. We are “embedded” with a British Battle Group in a Forward Operating Base (FOB) and our role is to assist the local Afghan authorities and security forces to establish governance in the district. As you will see from this Blog, the daily routine varies hugely which makes for an interesting life and makes up for the unusual (for a civilian) living conditions.