Alec Baldwin 'Rust' prosecutors concede embarrassing early loss

[Emrys]

26. He's a Professor at St Andrews University in Scotland, arguably the most prestigious in the UK.

Phillips Payson O'Brien is an American historian and professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He was formerly at the University of Glasgow where he ran the Scottish Centre for War Studies.
...
O'Brien was a Mellon Research Fellow in American history, and a Drapers Research Fellow at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, where he completed his PhD in British and American politics and naval policy. He credits fellow American-born British-resident historian Zara Steiner with being a major influence on his work. His dissertation was published by Praeger in 1998 as British and American Naval Power: Politics and Policy, 1900-1936.

He was subsequently lecturer in modern history at the University of Glasgow where he also ran the Scottish Centre for War Studies. There, he edited and contributed to Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (2001), which focussed on technical changes in making naval policy, and The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1922 (2004) which was based on papers given at the Anglo-Japanese Alliance 1902 Centenary Conference in 2002. In 2012, he gave evidence to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee of the British House of Commons on the future siting of British nuclear weapons in the event of Scotland leaving the United Kingdom.

In 2016, O'Brien moved to the University of St Andrews where he is professor of strategic studies.

I'll provide no link for the source of that information since you seem allergic to cited sources, unless they're MSM apparently.

Based on his academic qualifications, experience and track record, it's a fair bet he knows more about this field than any NYT writer, or you, for that matter.