Thomas Rid (born 1975 in Aach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany)[1][2] is a political scientist best known for his work on the history and risks of information technology in conflict.

[7] From 1997 to 2002 he studied social and political science (with Herfried Münkler[8]) at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and for one year at the London School of Economics.

[9] From 2003 to 2005 he was a Fritz Thyssen Foundation Scholar with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Germany's major government-funded foreign policy think tank, where he wrote his dissertation and first book.

[9][10] In 2006-2007 Rid was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut français des relations internationales (Ifri), a Paris-based think tank dedicated to international affairs.

[18] In 2020, Rid wrote in his Washington Post column that the valuable lessons from 2016 were: We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation — even if they probably aren't.