Michael L. Rupert

Biography

Dr.Michael Rupert was deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 in support of NATO, ISAF, and EUPOL as a lead social scientist with the U.S. Army where he developed cultural training for Afghan and ISAF military personnel, conducted research on gender issues for EUPOL, and researched the role of narrative in understanding the information environment. He recently returned from a second deployment to Afghanistan where he led an Afghan social research team based out of Kabul. Michael has over ten years experience leading, developing, and conducting sociocultural research on the application of inform and influence activities (IIA) within complex sociocultural frameworks in support of counterinsurgency efforts. He has researched and developed an analytical framework for the analysis and application of information operations in a counterinsurgency environment. He also has significant experience in the development and implementation of wargames and simulations for U.S. military and intelligence organizations on emerging threats, insurgency, and arms proliferation.

Research Interest

Critical Approaches to Terrorism, Insurgency, and Resistance Movements, Securitization, Critical Security Studies and Applied Narrative Theory, Application of socio-cultural knowledge to strategic communication and information operations, Politics, security and religion in Southwest & South Asia