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. At present he is a Global Europe & Kissinger China Institute Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Email: [email protected]
He 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 (CES) at Harvard University. In 2022 he was a Fellow at the American-German Institute (AGI; formerly AICGS) in Washington, DC.
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 & and international governance and leadership issues, including the life and politics of Winston Churchill. He has also written on the global economy and global security policies.
In short, Larres’ major research interests are threefold: 1. Current economic, security and political relations U.S.--China--EU/Germany; 2. Contemp. Transatlantic relations, U.S., German, British & Russian & EU foreign policy; 3. The Global Cold War & 20th century international history.
Other 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.
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.
In the spring of 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. 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.
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. Recent Publications: Larres latest monograph is 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 “The China Factor as a Cause for Transatlantic Tension from the 1970s to the Present."
He has also recently published a number of edited and co-edited books, such as The Oxford Handbook of German Politics (OUP, 2022); Dictators and Autocrats: Securing Power Across Global Politics (Routledge, 2022) and Terrorism and Transatlantic Relations: Threats and Challenges (co-ed. with T. 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).
Policy and Events Activities: 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).
In 2016, as a Fellow at the Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin, Germany's leading think tank, he also dealt with Germany's security and China policy. In this context he co-organized a number of briefings and advisory sessions 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.
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 Global Events Series since 2012 (https://www.krasnoevents.com). The Krasno Global Events Series is a lecture and conversation series with eminent scholars and practitioners. It includes an “Ambassadors & Distinguished Statespersons Forum” that has attracted many leading diplomats to UNC. The talks in these series are all video-taped and published on this ‘You Tube’ channel: www.youtube.com/KrasnoUNC
For his many book and article publications, please click the buttons below and there are tabs above for his TV interviews and speaking engagements.