Strategic Analyst
Dr. Friso Stevens is a Strategic Analyst at HCSS, working at the intersection of IR theory, military strategy, and foreign and defense policy analysis. His research focuses on the changing character of war across its many facets: from irregular methods and tactics that remain below the threshold of armed conflict -‘hybrid,’ or ‘gray zone’ conflict – to the future of land, air, and naval warfare amid new military technological innovations. His regional focus is broad, spanning Europe, Asia, and North America.
In May 2025, Friso’s PhD in International Relations from Leiden University was published as a peer-reviewed monograph in the Routledge Asian Security Studies Series under the title Chinese Assertiveness, Ideational Mobilization, and the Rise of Xi Jinping: Achieving Something. He has over a decade of experience researching security affairs in the Indo-Pacific, principally Chinese foreign and defense policy and the intricacies of CCP organizational doctrine, propaganda, and emotional nationalist narratives.
Other research has appeared in journals such as The Pacific Review, Asian Security, Journal of Contemporary China, International Politics, and Comparative Strategy, as well as in magazines that publish political analysis, such asEast Asia Forum, The Diplomat, Forbes, and The National Interest. Media outlets such as NRC Handelsblad,Nederlands Dagblad, NPO Radio 1,and The Wall Street Journal have interviewed him.
Before transitioning to a full-time role at HCSS, Friso was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Changing Character of War Centre at Pembroke College, University of Oxford; a Fulbright-Schuman NATO Security Studies Scholar with the School of Advanced International Studies Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University; a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute in Florence; a Postdoctoral Fellow in Asian Studies at the Department of Cultures, University of Helsinki; and a Lecturer in Political Science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.
Friso holds Master’s degrees in International Law (Vrije Universiteit and Northwestern University), International Security Studies (Vrije Universiteit), and International Relations (Peking University); a Bachelor’s Degree in Dutch and European Law (Vrije Universiteit); and a Postgraduate Certificate in War Studies (King’s College London
