Brigadier Vincent Williams

Biography

I am a graduate of the four year course at the Royal Military College, Duntroon where I gained a BA (UNSW) as well as my military commission. My military appointments included numerous teaching roles and, as a lieutenant colonel, I was selected as Australia's representative to teach at the prestigious UK Army Command and Staff College, Camberley (1993/94) where I was responsible for the Counter Insurgency (COIN), Terrorism and United Nations Peacekeeping modules of the 12 month course. I then spent two years, as a colonel, at the Australian Army Command and Staff College (1995/96) as the Director of Studies, where I oversaw the delivery of modules including COIN, Terrorism and Peacekeeping. It was for this appointment and as Director of Army's Doctrine Development Centre that I received a Conspicuous Service Cross (CSC). During this time I also completed the Master of Arts (International Relations) course at Deakin University. In 1999 I spent 12 months as a full time participant at what is now titled Defence's Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies, where the focus of the course was on high-level geopolitical strategic studies in the Asia Pacific region. I became a Fellow of the College at the end of the course.

Research Interest

Insurgencies and why they happen; countering insurgencies; and, peacekeeping operations, responsibility to protect and humanitarian intervention.