Dr. Phil Williams
- Position: Visiting Research Professor
- Area(s) of Expertise: Transnational Crime
Dr. Phil Williams is Professor of International Security in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. From 1992 until April 2001, Dr. Williams was the Director of the University's Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies. Professor Williams has published extensively in the field of international security including Crisis Management, (1976) The Senate and US Troops in Europe, (1986) and (with Mike Bowker) Superpower Detente: A Reappraisal (1987). He has edited or co-edited books on the Carter, Reagan, and Bush Presidencies, as well as on Classic Readings in International Relations. During the last 15 years his research has focused primarily on transnational organized crime and he has written articles on various aspects of this subject in Survival, Washington Quarterly, The Bulletin on Narcotics, Temps Strategique, Scientific American, Criminal Organizations, and Cross Border Control. In addition, Dr. Williams was founding editor of a journal entitled Transnational Organized Crime. He has been a consultant to both the United Nations and United States government agencies on organized crime and has also given congressional testimony on the subject. Most recently he has focused on alliances among criminal organization, global and national efforts to combat money laundering, and trends and development in cyber-crime. Dr Williams has edited a volume, Russian Organized Crime, and a book, Illegal Immigration and Commercial Sex: The New Slave Trade. He is also co-editor of a recent volume on Combating Transnational Crime He is currently completing a book for Polity Press on Transnational Organized Crime for publication in 2008. In 2001-2002 he was on Sabbatical from the University of Pittsburgh and was a Visiting Scientist at CERT/CC Carnegie Mellon University, where he worked on computer crime and organized crime. In the last few years Dr. Williams has also worked on terrorist finances as well as on complexity theory and its relationship to intelligence analysis. At SSI, Dr Williams is working on organized crime in Iraq, lessons from the Madrid Bombings, and the relationship between governance, disorder and security.
*The above information may not be current. It was current at the time when the individual worked for SSI or was published by SSI.
SSI Publications by Dr. Phil Williams
- Added August 26, 2009
- Type: Monograph
- Criminals, Militias, and Insurgents: Organized Crime in Iraq.
- Authored by Dr. Phil Williams.
- Criminal enterprises and activities had a debilitating impact and made the attainment of U.S. objectives in Iraq much more difficult. Organized crime inhibited reconstruction and development and became a major obstacle to state-building; the insurgency was strengthened and sustained by criminal activities; sectarian conflict was funded by criminal activities and motivated by the desire to control criminal markets; and more traditional criminal enterprises created pervasive insecurity through kidnapping and extortion. Organized crime also acted as an economic and political spoiler in an oil industry expected to be the dynamo for growth and reconstruction in post Ba’athist Iraq.
- Added June 03, 2008
- Type: Monograph
- From the New Middle Ages to a New Dark Age: The Decline of the State and U.S. Strategy.
- Authored by Dr. Phil Williams.
- The author contends that the long-term decline of the state will move the world into a New Dark Age in which the forces of chaos and disorder will be almost overwhelming. Alternative options for the U.S. response to the security challenges posed by such an environment are examined.
SSI Reports and Editorials by Dr. Phil Williams
- Added April 02, 2009
- Type: Op-Ed
- Drug Trafficking, Violence, and the State in Mexico.
- Authored by Dr. Phil Williams.
- Each month a member of the SSI faculty writes an editorial for our monthly newsletter. This is the Op-Ed for the April 2009 newsletter.