Ola Tunander

Göran Ola Tunander (born 1948) is a research professor emeritus at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO, Norway). He worked as a researcher at PRIO in the period 1987-2016. He is the son of Museum Director Ingemar Tunander and his first wife Gunvor (born Lilja). Tunander is married to the Chinese scholar Yao Xiaoling. He has written and edited 12 books and a number of articles on security politics, naval strategy, submarine operations, geopolitics, dual state, psychological operations (PSYOP) and Cold War history. After obtaining a Masters in economic history at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) in 1981, Tunander wrote for philosophical magazines and in 1985 he published two books in Swedish. In 1987, he wrote a volume on United States Maritime Strategy for the Swedish Defence Research Agency. In 1989, he defended his doctoral dissertation at the Department for Technology and Social Change, Linköping University. While finalizing his doctoral thesis Cold Water Politics (1989) on US Maritime Strategy, technology, and the geopolitics of the North, he received a research position at PRIO in Oslo. In 1989, he was appointed Senior Research Fellow and was given tenure.