October 2017
Robert D. English
VKC 305, Univ.of Southern California 619 Tuallitan Road
Los Angeles, CA 90089 Los Angeles, CA 90049
(213) 821-3090 (626) 372-4161
Education
Ph.D., Department of Politics, Princeton University, 1995
Exam fields: international relations theory, comparative politics, Russian history
Dissertation: Intellectual and Political Origins of Soviet “New Thinking”
M.P.A., Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, 1982
Fields: foreign policy, national security, international economics
B.A., Department of History, University of California at Berkeley, 1980
President’s Undergraduate Fellowship for research at the University of Zagreb
toward honors thesis on Origins of the Croatian Peasant Party, 1899-1905
Teaching and research appointments
Director, USC School of International Relations, 2012-2016
Associate Professor, USC School of International Relations, 2004 (Assistant since 2001)
Joint appointments in Slavic Languages and Literatures (since 2006) and Environmental Studies (since 2012)
Graduate courses: Russian and Post-Soviet Politics; Strategy and Arms Control; International Relations Theory; Social Science and Historical Research Methods Undergraduate: Russian and Post-Soviet Foreign Policy; Political Economy of Eurasia; Technology and International Relations;Climate Change and Global Security; Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict; Foreign Policy of East-Central Europe; Ethnicity, Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Politics
Visiting Fellow, Sciences Po (Centre des Ameriques), Paris, Spring 2009
Research Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton NJ, 2000-2001
Assistant Professor, Bologna Center, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 1998-2000
Assistant Professor, Political Science Department, Allegheny College, 1994-1998
Security and arms control experience
Senior Analyst, Committee for National Security, 1985-1987
Analysis of strategic defense and space weapons, treaty verification and compliance,
general Soviet political-military affairs.
Policy Analyst, U.S. Department of Defense, 1982-1985
Strategic and conventional force planning (e.g. B-52 modernization, ASW and C3I programs, CRAF). Also program review analysis, drafting Congressional testimony and speeches.
Fellowships, grants, honors and awards
USC Mellon Mentoring Award, 2013
Joint Appointment in Environmental Studies, 2012
USC Dana and David Dornsife College Faculty Fellow, 2011-13
Religion, Identity & Global Governance new course grant, December 2008
Mortar Board Senior Honor Society, “tapped” in March, 2007
Joint Appointment in Slavic Languages and Literatures, 2006
Membership in World Political Forum, 2004
Edgar S. Furniss Award (Mershon Center, for outstanding contribution to the study
of national or international security), 2001
Marshal Shulman Prize (American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, for best book on foreign relations of the former USSR), 2001
NEH Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ), 2000-01
Harold D. Lasswell Prize (American Political Science Assoc. dissertation award), 1996
Lambda Sigma “Best Professor” Award, Allegheny College, 1996
Princeton Society of Fellows, 1992-93
MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, Center of International Studies, Princeton, 1991-92
Distinguished Fellow in International Relations, U.S. Fund for Peace/Soviet Peace Fund, 1990
International Research and Exchanges Board Fellowship, 1989-90
Council on Foreign Relations, term member, 1988-92
Ford Foundation “Dual Expertise” Fellowship, Soviet/Security Studies, 1988-89
Superior Performance Commendation, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1984
Professional societies
International Studies Association; American Political Science Association; American
Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies; The Naval Institute
Languages
Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Italian (fluent); French, Spanish (reading)
Publications
Under review
“A Presumption of Guilt: Western Media Bias in Portrayals of the Russia-
Georgia Conflict,” co-authorKate Svyatets, atthe journalPost-Soviet Affairs
In progress
Mikhail Gorbachev: A Political Biography (under contract at Potomac Books,
flagship volume in series “Shapers of International History”—manuscript to
publisher in August 2018).
Our Serbian Brethren: History and Identity in the Making of Russia’s Balkan Diplomacy
(completion likely in Winter 2019)
Books
Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000). Awarded 2001 Marshal ShulmanPrize
and 2001 Edgar S. Furniss Award (see detail in “fellowships and awards” section above).
Rebirth: A History of Europe Since World War II (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1999), co-authors Cyril Black, Jonathan Helmreich, and James McAdams.
The Other Side: How Soviets and Americans Perceive Each Other (Brunswick, NJ: Transactions Press, 1987), co-author Jonathan C. Halperin.
Edited projects
“Hegemony and its Discontents,” co-authored introduction (with Steve Lamy) and edited special edition of International Studies Review, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 2005).
My Six Years With Gorbachev (University Park, Penn State University Press, 2000) This book, the memoirs of Gorbachev aide Anatoly Chernyaev, was extensively edited and annotated. I also wrote the introduction, “Six Years That Shook the World,” and was co-translator (with Elizabeth Tucker) from the original Russian.
Articles and chapters
“Russia and the Arctic: Constructing a New Cold War?” in Andrei Tsygankov,
ed., The Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy (Routledge, forthcoming Spring 2018):
8,400 words.
“Russia, Trump, and a New Détente?” Foreign Affairs (March 2017) 5,400 words.
Accessible online at:
Articles and chapters, contd.
“The Cold War’s End, and Aftermath,” in Richard Ned Lebow, ed., Pioneer
in International Relations Theory, History, Political Philosophy and Psychology, vol. 1
(Springer Publishers, 2017), pp. 75-84.
“American Diplomacy with the Russian ‘Adversary’,” in Geoff Wiseman,
ed.,Isolate or Engage: Adversarial States, US Foreign Policy, and Public Diplomacy
(Stanford University Press, 2015), pp. 24-58.
“Soviet Elites and European Integration: From Stalin to Gorbachev,”European
Review of History—Revue Européene d’histoire vol. 21, no. 2 (2013), pp. 219-233.
“ ‘Merely an above-average product of the Soviet nomenklatura?’ Assessing
Leadership in the Cold War’s end,” International Politics vol. 48 (July-September
2011), pp. 607-626
“Nationalism and Post-Communist InternationalRelations,” in Robert A.
Denemark, ed., The International Studies Encyclopedia, vol. VIII (Blackwell, 2010),
pp.5279-5301, co-authors Kate Svyatets and Azamat Zhanalin.
“A ‘Reset’ for Relations? Understanding Russian Grievances,” in Global Dialogue
special issue “AfterGeorgia,” vol. 11 (Winter-Spring, 2009), pp. 50-63.
“Old Thinking and New: Khrushchev and Gorbachev,” in Abbot Gleason, ed.,
A Companion to Russian History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), pp. 429-450.
“Georgia: The Ignored History,” The New York Review of Books vol. LV, no. 17
(Nov. 2008), pp. 21-23. See also online at:
“Lessons From the Bloc: What Russia Should Have Taught us About Iraq,”
The National Interest no. 91 (Aug.-Sept. 2007), pp. 77-82. Available online at:
“The Collapse of the European State-Socialist Regimes,” in Bernd Greiner and
Christian Mueller, eds., Between ‘Total War’ and ‘Small Wars’: The Societal History of
theCold War (Hamburg: Institut für Sozialforschung, 2007).
“Perestroika without politics: how realism misunderstands the Cold War’s end,” in Gary Goertz and Jack S. Levy, eds., Explaining War and Peace: Case Studies and Counterfactuals,” (New York and London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 211-232.
“The Sociology of New Thinking: Elites, Identity Change, and the Cold War’s End,” Journal of Cold War Studies (Spring 2005), pp. 43-80.
“Serbia and Montenegro in Crisis,” in Gorbachev and Grachev, eds., 1985-2005:
Twenty Years that Changed the World (Rome: Laterza, 2005), pp. 269-281.
Articles and chapters, contd.
“Ideas and the end of the Cold War: rethinking intellectual and political change,” in Silvio Pons and Federico Romero, eds., Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War (New York and London: Frank Cass, 2005), pp. 116-136.
“The Road(s) Not Taken: Causality and Contingency in Analysis of the Cold War’s End,” in William C. Wohlforth, ed., Cold War Endgame: Oral History, Analysis, Debates (University Park: Penn State Univ. Press, 2004), pp. 243-272.
“Power, Ideas, and New Evidence on the Cold War’s End,” International Security vol. 26, no. 4 (Spring 2002), pp. 70-92.
“The Kosovo War,” in Joel Krieger, ed., The Oxford Companion to the Politics of the World (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 474-479.
“Sources, Methods, and Competing Perspectives on the End of the Cold War,” Diplomatic History vol. 21, no. 2 (Spring, 1997), pp. 283-294.
“Internal Enemies, External Enemies: Elites, Identity, and the Tragedy of Post-Soviet Georgia,” in Michael Kraus and Ronald Liebowitz, eds., Russia and Eastern Europe After Communism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), pp. 207-222.
“Assessing Soviet Strategic Defenses,” Foreign Policy no. 70 (Spring, 1988), pp. 129-149. Co-authored with Stephen Daggett.
“SOI podryvaet strategicheskuiu stabil’nost,” Mezhdunarodnaia Zhizn’ (Moscow)
no. 3, 1988, pp. 99-104.
“Eastern Europe’s Doves,” Foreign Policy no. 56 (Fall, 1984), pp. 44-60.
Review essays
“U.S.-Soviet Relations and the Collapse of the USSR,” featured review essay on
H-Diplo (March 2017). See
“Cold War Anthropology,” featured review article on David H. Price,The CIA, The
Pentagon, and the Growth of Dual Use Anthropology. In Slavic Review 76:4 (2017).
“Reviewing the Cold War,” H-Diplo roundtable Vol. XII, no. 13 (2012). Essay on Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. III (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011). See
also:
“Zhiznesposobnost’ gibridnykh modelei,” Iaroslavl’ Forum-Russkii Zhurnal,
July 2011, p. 9 (interview)
“Change to Engagement in Britain’s Cold War Policy,” H-Diplo review no. 206 (22-23 December 2008). Essay reviewing Archie Brown, “The Origins of the Thatcher-Gorbachev Rapprochement,” Journal of Cold War Studies 10:3 (2008). Also available at:
“Power and Ideology in the Origins of Soviet Foreign Policy Change,” International History Review vol. XXVI, no. 2 (June, 2004), pp. 421-426. Essay reviewing Matthew Ouimet, The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy, and James Voorhees, Dialogue Sustained: The Multilevel Peace Process and the Dartmouth Conference.
“The Revolution Within,” The Nation, 26 May 2003, pp. 29-36. Essay on William
Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, Mikhail Gorbachev, Zdenek Mlynar, Conversations with Gorbachev, and George Breslauer, Gorbachev and Yeltsin as Leaders.
“Condemned to Repetition?”, Journal of Cold War Studies vol. 4, no. 3 (summer,
2002), pp. 148-151. Review of Andrew Bennet, The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of Soviet/Russian Military Interventionism.
“There Are No Happy Reformers,” The Bologna Center Journal of International
Affairs vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 109-116. Essay reviewing Mikhail
Gorbachev and Zdenek Mlynar, Reformatori nebyvaji stastni: dialog o Perestrojce,
Prazskem jaru a socialismu.
Other reviews
Reviews also published in: Political Science Quarterly, The American Review of Politics,
The Russian Review, Slavic Review, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Selected commentary and analysis of foreign and arms-control policy
“Bernie Sanders, The Foreign Policy Realist of 2016,”The Nation, 19 February 2016.
“Ukraine’s Threat From Within,” Los Angeles Times, 13 March 2014.
“The International Policy Rationale for the Military Buildup on Guam and Some
Environmental Drivers,” Scientific American featured blog, April 30, 2012 (co-author Jim Haw), 2400 words.
“Soviet Radar and American Distortion,” Nuclear Times, November-December
1987 (co-author Stephen Daggett).
“Collision in Space: The Star Wars Showdown,” The New Republic, 29 June 1987.
“Linkage Imperils Soviet Arms Talks,” The Los Angeles Times, 24 May 1987 (co-
author William E. Colby).
“Bridge Under Troubled Waters,” The New Republic, 27 April 1987.
“Star Wars May Destroy Strategic Defenses,” The New York Times, 15 February
1987 (co-author William E. Colby).
“Reagan’s ‘Peace Shield’ Can Attack Too,” The Washington Post, Outlook section,
15 February 1987.
Breaking the Deadlock: A CNS Arms Control Proposal (Washington, DC:
Committee for National Security, January, 1987)
“Why Do The Soviets Fear Star Wars?”, Newsday, 16 July 1986
“To Abandon SALT is to Blind the US,” The New York Times, 2 July 1986 (co-
author William E. Colby).
“Offensive Star Wars,” The New Republic, 24 February 1986.
“Cold Wars,” an exchange with E.P. Thompson in The Nation, 16 November
1985.
Conference papers, panels, invited presentations
“Russia, the EU, and the Arctic,” 22 June, 2017. Lecture at the Institute for European
Studies, Vrije Unversiteit Brussel, Belgium.
“What Have we Learned About Post-Communist Transitions?” 24 May, 2017.
Featured speaker at conference on Armenia 25 Years On, Yerevan, Armenia.
“America and Russia: The Domestic Politics of International Relations,” 15 May, 2017.
Spoke at UCLA Colloquium on Social Theory and Comparative History (co-sponsored
by Center for European and Eurasian Studies),University of California, Los Angeles.
“Why We Get Russia Wrong,” 27 April, 2017. Guest of the Institute of International
Studies and the Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, University of
California, Berkeley.
“Lessons from Halfway,” 9 April, 2017. Introduction for Global Conference on The
Endof Transition, USC Institute for Armenian Studies.
“Celebrity Diplomacy: Redefining Armenia’s Role in the Diaspora,” 29 January 2017.
Opening speaker-moderator for conference ofUSC Institute for Armenian Studies.
28 October 2016. “Russia: A Renewed Enemy?” Chaired panel at World Affairs Council, San Francisco
12-14 October 2016. “Korea: Beyond Today,” represented Russian Federation
in five scenarios of Korean crises at the Department of Strategic Wargaming,
Center for Strategic Leadership, United States Army War College, Carlisle, PA.
18 May 2016. “Reflections on the End of the Cold War,” invited lecture for MA
program in international studies at the European Universityof St. Petersburg, Russia.
16 May 2016. “Changing Geopolitical Narratives on the High North in American
Specialized and Mass Media,” presentation at the International Summer School of
Karelia on Arctic and Baltic Regional Organization, Petrozavodsk, Russia.
Papers, panels, invited presentations, contd.
12 May 2016. “Militarizing or Securitizing the Arctic? Analyses of Trends in Mass, Elite, and Expert Media,” paper presented at conference The European Union in International Affairs, VUB-Brussels, Belgium.
26 April 2016. “Almost Holy,” discussant for panel on film Krokodil Gena (Ukraine)
at Skirball Cultural Center-Social Impact Media Awards.
8 April 2016. “Russia and Ukraine,” presentation for symposium Crises in Central
Europe, inaugural event for Central European Studies major, USC Dornsife College.
2 April 2016. “The True-Born Englishman,” talk on identity and nationalism atInnovate Armenia, conference of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, Los Angeles.
5 November, 2015. Participant (and co-organizer, with Gen. David Petraeus) on Global
Threats Roundtable.
4-5 August, 2015. “Russia and the Geopolitics of the Arctic,” Royal Norwegian Polar Academy-UNIS, Svalbard, Norway.
17 May 2015. “Understanding Russian Attitudes on Ukraine: Putin and His People,” Claremont-McKenna College.
23 February 2015. “What Happens After Genocide,” conversation with Thomas De Waal, USC Armenian Institute.
1 December 2014. “Russia, Ukraine, and the West,” Cappadoccia Memorial Presidential lecture, University of Montana.
21 November, 2014. “LGBT Politics in Russia, the Former USSR and Eastern Europe,” Center for Public Diplomacy, Annenberg School, USC. Panelist for
CPD conference on LGBT rights and public diplomacy.
November 10, 2014. Presentation on Berlin crises in the Cold War for special event on Tear Down This Wall: 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. USC German Studies.
September 27, 2014. ISA West, Pasadena CA. Chaired panel on “US Trade and
Foreign Policy in Eurasia.”
September 17, 2014. “Putin’s Power—Russia and Ukraine.” Featured address
for Global Cafémeeting of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council
Papers, panels, invited presentations, contd.
July 2, 2014: “Putin’s New World Order,” Hammer Museum Forum, Los Angeles.
Moderated by Ian Masters, co-panelist Nina Khrushcheva.
April 25, 2014: “Showdown in Crimea,” Pacific Council for International Policy,
Los Angeles. Presentation for PCIP Spring conference, panel on Russia-Ukraine.
April 7, 2014: “Ukraine in Crisis: Revolution and Russian Intervention,” UCLA School of Law. Panel of the UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies.
March 26, 2014: “Conterfactuals in IR: Making Sense of Complexity,” panel at the annual convention of the International Studies Association, Toronto. Co-panelists
Ned Lebow, Fred Chernoff, and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita.
May 20-22, 2013: European University Institute (EUI - Florence, Italy). Conference on “Socialist Visions and European Cooperation.”
November 18, 2011: Assoc. for Slavic, East European, Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) convention, Washington, DC. Roundtable honoring the legacy of Robert C. Tucker.
October 28, 2011: Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies, Claremont-McKenna College. “Russian Foreign Policy 20 Years After the Breakup of the USSR.”
April 21,2011: Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles: invited lecture on “Conflict and Cooperation in theCaucasus.”
March 17, 2011: International Studies Association annual convention, Montreal:
Panel on Cold War Reconsidered, paper on “Leadership and Grand Strategy.”
February 17, 2001: University of California, San Diego: symposium on
Explaining State Nonproliferation Decision-Making,” panel on “Sources of
Russian non-proliferation policy.”
December 8, 2010: Center for International Studies, USC: presentation (with paper)
on “A Presumption of Guilt? Russia, Georgia, and the Western Media.”
November 19, 2010: ASEEES annual convention, discussant for panel on“Identity and Society in the formation ofContemporary Russian foreign policy.
October 13, 2010: Institute for Modern Russian Culture (USC): special seminar
“The Aftermath of the 1905 Revolution in Russian Politics.”
September 20, 2010: USC Armenian Institute, invited lecture on “Armenia Under Russian Eyes.”
Papers, panels, invited presentations, contd.
September 17, 2010: ISA West convention, chaired panel on “Explaining Myths and Realities in Arms Control, Deterrence, and Nonproliferation.”
August 20, 2010: Engaging Adversarial States, NEH-funded workshop at USC,
paper on “USDiplomacy with the Russian Adversary.”
March 6, 2010: Princeton Univ. workshop on The End of the Cold WarAfter Twenty Years: Reconsiderations, Retrospectives, Revisions, paper “Ideas and Revolutions in Grand Strategy.”
February 20, 2010: International Studies Association, New Orleans. Paper on “Media Bias in Portrayals of Russia’s Conflicts with Ukraine and Georgia.”
November 9, 2009: Featured address on the end of the Cold War at The Legacy of 1989 conference of the Danish Foreign Ministry, Copenhagen University; November 10, presentation on “Russia’s Afghan Experience” at the Graveyards of Empire seminar of the Danish Institute for Military Studies, Copenhagen.
May 14, 2009: Panelist for symposium on Russia and the Caucasus, Centre d’Etudes
et de Recherches Internationales (CERI), Sciences Po, Paris.
November 17, 2008: Invited Lecture on “Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in the Former Yugoslavia,” California Polytechnic University, Pomona.
September 12, 2008: USC College panel Georgia on Our Minds, “Georgian Nationalism and the Origins of Separatist Conflict with Russia.”