Visiting Senior Research Fellow:
Dr Brian Jones.
Brian Jones joined MCIS in 2004, having retired from the Defence Intelligence Staff of the Ministry of Defence in January 2003.
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From 1987 he led the UK effort on the analysis and assessment of intelligence on foreign chemical and biological weapons programmes. From 1996 his responsibilities expanded to include nuclear weapons programmes. His work has given him a unique overview of global Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Weapons capabilities and his experience of them embraces the period from the Cold War to the changed international environment that followed. He has worked with many of the key political players and most of the main defence, intelligence and scientific experts in these fields in the UK, US, Commonwealth, Europe and elsewhere.
Dr Jones trained as an applied scientist gaining an honours degree in Metallurgy at University College, Cardiff in 1965. Sponsored by the UKAEA, he studied the physical metallurgy of nuclear reactor core structural materials and was awarded a PhD at the University of Wales in 1968. He worked first as a research scientist in the nuclear industry with AECL in Canada where he investigated alternative structural materials for nuclear reactors. Returning to Britain in 1973 he joined the Ministry of Defence at the Admiralty Marine Technology Establishment in Dorset where his research focused mainly on the structural integrity of submarines and their nuclear pressure vessels. He was appointed Head of Metallurgy in 1979. Through the period 1970 - 1985 he published many papers in academic journals including Nature, The Journal of Materials Science, Carbon, and Fibre Technology, and numerous classified reports and articles.
In 1983 he left R&D to become Officer-in-Charge of the Naval Aircraft Materials Laboratory in Gosport which provided in-service support for MOD's rotary wing and the Royal Navy's fixed wing aircraft.
He joined the Defence Intelligence Staff in Whitehall in 1987. Since his retirement he has begun writing and lecturing about intelligence and "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD), publishing articles in various national newspapers and magazines. His particular interests are in the relationship between intelligence and policy in government; and investigating the potential for a coherent strategy for defence against states and terrorists that possess WMD.