Dr Olaf Bachmann

Dr. Bachmann was born in Germany in autumn 1961, he is married, and lives and works in Palma de Mallorca, Brussels, and London. Olaf Bachmann holds a PhD in War Studies (King’s College London), and a MA (Distinction) in War in the Modern World. He is co-founder of a consultancy in the fields of security governance, and institution building, and relevant publishing. As a visiting senior research fellow at King’s the focus of his research and writing is on the African Peace and Security Architecture, and the history and contemporary state of African military and warfare.

He spent many years of field research in Central Africa, mainly in Gabon, Cameroon, Rwanda, and The DRC and the Republic of Congo. He is member of the Royal African Society, and of the War Studies Africa Research Group at King’s College London, where he teaches at the African Leadership Centre on Governance of Security and State Formation. Teaching in combination with Master and PhD student supervision, and research commitments, focuses on subjects including the governance of security, and leadership theory with an emphasis on the developing world. He spent much of 2019 as visiting scholar at the German Armed Forces Social Science Research Service. War Studies is his second career after many years in publishing and the book trade.

Beyond academia Dr Bachmann performs managerial tasks in a Spain based consulting company, Kormoran 2012 S.L., which are organisational in character and covering legal, financial, and logistic tasks, as well as preparatory research for tender procurement relevant to this consultancy’s clientele. In addition he is founding member of the Instituto Balear de Estudios Estrategicos based in Palma.