William L. Mitchell

Associate Professor Dr William L. Mitchell, commonly known as Mitch, is currently the Director of Military Intelligence Education at the Language and Intelligence Academy within the Norwegian Defence University. He has had a distinguished military career spanning three decades, during which he participated in a dozen conflicts across four continents. His service has earned him 13 medals and 2 citations. Mitch primarily worked with special forces and in unconventional warfare, focusing on intelligence and operational planning in staff roles up to the grade of M401. From 2016 to 2023, he served as the Chief Advisor at the newly established Danish Special Operations Command (SOCOM), where he made significant contributions to the operational development of the Combined-Special Operations Command Component (C-SOCC) for NATO. 

Mitch has an extensive academic background, having taught intelligence, security, and military operations courses at Copenhagen University, Århus University, Royal Danish Defence College, the Norwegian Defence University College, and NATO School Oberammergau. He has developed intelligence and operational planning courses at diploma, Bachelor's, and Master’s level, and supervised many postgraduate civilian-military research projects, and conducted classified research for NATO and the Danish Defence. In recognition of his research on Battlespace Agility, he received the NATO Scientific Achievement Award in 2014. He has written numerous reports, articles, and books. He co-authored "Deception & Counter Deception" and "Target Centric Network Modelling" with Robert M. Clark and Sage Publishing. With thousands of copies distributed worldwide, they are widely used for international training and education in Western civilian and military intelligence programs at the diploma, graduate, and post-graduate levels. 

ORCID https://orcid.org/0009-0006-6317-6021