Michael James Totten (born September 1970) is an American writer who has reported from the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans, Cuba, Vietnam, and the Caucasus.

In July 2007, Totten traveled to Baghdad to embed with several U.S. Army units before transitioning to Anbar province and embedding with U.S.

[citation needed] In comments on his own website from 2008 Totten described himself as a "weird combination of liberal, libertarian, and neocon" and a politically centrist.

[10] He believed that the critics of the war in Iraq who noted the lack of progress from 2004 to 2006 were correct while the Bush administration was wrong.

Most of his trips—to Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Georgia, and several other places—are paid for out of his own pocket, although he has also accepted funding from the government of Azerbaijan, the American Jewish Committee and the Lebanese pro-western March 14 alliance for trips to Azerbaijan, Israel, and Lebanon, respectively.