Prof. Klaus W. Larres, Ph.D., is the RichardM. KrasnoDistinguishedProfessorofHistoryandInternationalAffairs at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC. He is also the Director of the Krasno Global Affairs & Business Council/Krasno Global Events Series at UNC. Email: larres@unc.edu
He has recently served as a Counselor and Senior Policy Adviser at the German Embassy in Beijing, China. In the spring of 2023 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. During the academic year 2023-23 he is a Global Europe & Kissinger China Institute Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.
Larres also was a Visiting Professor at Schwarman College/Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and a non-residential Senior Fellow at the think tank Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. He is a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University's Center for European Studies (CES).
He has been appointed to the position of 'Distinguished Visiting Professor' at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, India. He has also been asked to serve on the 'International Board' of the Bundeskanzler-Willy-Brandt-Stiftung in Berlin and on the board of directors of the Carolina China Council in Raleigh, NC. He also is a senior adviser to the Chinese-American Friendship Association (CAECA) in Raleigh, NC, and board member of the Berlin based foreign policy journal WeltTrends and The NC Zeitgeist Foundation in Charlotte, NC.
Expertise: Larres focuses on the global politics of the U.S., China, Germany, Russia & the EU and the UK. In particular, he writes and lectures on the political, economic, and security relations among the triangle US-China-EU. He also works on transatlantic relations, the history of the Global Cold War & the life and politics of Winston Churchill. He has also written on the complex North Korea problem and on Brexit and its consequences.
In short, Larres’ major research interests are threefold: 1. Current economic, security and political relations U.S.--China--EU/Germany; 2. Transatlantic relations, U.S., German, British & Russian foreign policy, and EU politics; 3. The Global Cold War & 20th century international history; politics of Winston Churchill.
Previous positions: Larres is the former holder of the Henry A Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and the former Clifford Hackett Visiting Professor of European History at Yale University. He also taught British Politics at Johns Hopkins University/SAIS in Washington, DC. In 2016-17 he was selected as a Member/ Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, NJ.
In 2016 he was a Fellow at the Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin, Germany's leading think tank, where he dealt with Germany's security and China policy. In this context he also was an adviser and co-organized several briefings for the U.S. and Asia experts at the German Chancellery and the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin in preparation of Chancellor Merkel's 9th official visit to China. Larres was a Visiting Professor at Tongji University in Shanghai, China, in early 2017.
Prior to moving to the U.S. in 2009, Larres was a professor in International Relations and Foreign Policy at the University of London, the University of Ulster and Jean Monnet Professor for European Foreign and Security Policy at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland.
Current and recent activities: Larres has recently published a monograph entitled “Uncertain Allies: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Threat of a United Europe" (Yale UP, 2022). He is now engaged in conducting research for a book provisionally entitled “U.S.-China-Europe: the Search for Order and National Advantage”. He has also just published a number of edited books, such as Dictators and Autocrats: Securing Power Across Global Politics (Routledge, 2022) and Terrorism and Transatlantic Relations: Threats and Challenges (co-ed. with To Hof; Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). The co-edited volumes Understanding Global Politics: Actors and Themes in International Affairs and German-American Relations in the 21st Century: A Fragile Friendship have been published in respectively 2020 and 2019 (both by Routledge). Among his best known books is probably the volume Churchill's Cold War: The Politics of Personal Diplomacy (Yale UP, 2002).
During his 2018 stint as Counselor and Senior Policy Adviser at the German Embassy Beijing, China, Larres was engaged in the analysis of trilateral relations among China, the US and Germany. He also was involved in the preparation of Chancellor Merkel's 11th official visit to China as well as in many other issues of German-Chinese relations. He represented the Embassy and the Federal Republic of Germany at a number of official occasions in China (in Beijing, Shanghai and Qingdao).
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) Larres directs the Krasno Global Affairs and Business Council and has been in charge of the Krasno Events Series since 2012 (https://www.krasnoevents.com). The Krasno Events Series consists of a lecture series with eminent scholars entitled “The U.S. in World Affairs,” an “Ambassadors & Distinguished Statespersons Forum” that has attracted many leading diplomats to UNC, and a forum “U.S.-China-Europe” which analyzes the manifold implications of the rise of and western competition with China. The talks in these series are all video-taped and published on this ‘You Tube’ channel: www.youtube.com/KrasnoUNC
Born in Germany, Larres was educated at the University of Cologne and the London School of Economics (LSE) in the UK. He has published widely on all of the above research themes. He frequently gives interviews to the global media and is often consulted by media organizations & think tanks and international businesses.
For his many book and article publications, please click the buttons below and there are tabs above for his TV interviews and speaking engagements.
