Director of Research & Training UK, CAN, USA, NATO Military Forces, Valka-Mir Research Foundation Psychological Warfare
Dr. Patrick James Christian is a psychoanalytical anthropologist with a doctorate in ethnic and cultural conflict. As a decorated combat Special Forces officer with 26-years in the US Army followed by 7 additional years as a field research scientist for USSOCOM, Dr. Christian has served as a combatant and or field research scientist in nearly all of the most violent conflict zones of the past quarter century to include Central and South America, Middle East, SW Asia, East, West, and North Africa, and East-Central Eurasia. His research and publication specializations involve quantitative and qualitative phenomenological inquiry and ethnographic discovery of the underlying psychosocial-emotional drivers of intractable communal conflict and inhibitors of successful resolution. His and his colleagues work is guided by the application of western psychology based on the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders - V5 that is carefully curated using anthropology to establish a baseline and pathway of indigenous family and collective social health – psychologically, physically, socially, & emotionally. As the director of research and training for Valka-Mir Research Foundation, a USA based 501c3, he researches, develops, and teaches a highly specialised, one-of-a-kind, curriculum in violent Psychological Warfare by malign state and non-state actors. These courses are NATO-UNCLASS. However, they are restricted to alliance members' military and civilian government personnel. Taught at the tactical-operational level, the courses focus on the intervention of psychosocial weaponization of vulnerable civilian populations, genocide, ethnic cleansing, civil war, and the activation, reformation, and strengthening of indigenous governance. This past year, Dr. Christian served as the lead scientist for NATO Allied Command Transformation’s development of a Cognitive Warfare Concept with Norway CDR Paul Grostad.