Klaus W. Larres

Professor Klaus W. Larres, Ph.D., is the Richard M. Krasno Distinguished Professor of History and International Affairs at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC. He is presently a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Earlier in 2023 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Center of European Studies at Harvard University. In 2018 he served as a Counselor and Senior Policy Adviser at the German Embassy in Beijing, China. Email: larres@unc.edu

Previously, 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 serves 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.

Larres' website is http://www.klauslarres.org

Expertise:
Larres focuses on the foreign, economic and security policies of the U.S., China, Germany and the EU. In particular, he writes and lectures on economic and political relations among the triangle US-China-EU/Germany. 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 EU politics and Brexit.

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 and British foreign policy, and EU politics;
3. The Global Cold War & 20th century international history; politics of W. 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 just completed a book entitled “Uncertain Ally: The U.S. and the Unity of Europe" (for Yale UP). He is now engaged in conducting research for a monograph provisionally entitled “U.S.-China-Europe: the Search for Order and National Advantage”. In addition he is preparing a number of co-edited books on global affairs. The co-edited volume Understanding Gloal Politics: Actors and Themes in International Affairs has recently been published (Routledge, 2019). 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.