Wilson Center Experts

Samuel Wells

Senior Scholar
European Studies

Contact Information:
samuel.wells@wilsoncenter.org
T 202/691-4208 // F 202/691-4001
Expertise:
Europe
;
European Union
;
France
Affiliation:
Former Associate Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center and Former Director of the West European Studies Program
Wilson Center Project(s):
“The Korean War and U.S. Escalation of the Cold War"
Term:
Oct 01, 2008
-
Sep 30, 2012

Samuel F. Wells has taught at Wellesley College, and for thirteen years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  At the Wilson Center he founded the International Security Studies Program in 1977 and directed that program until 1985.  Since then he has served as Associate Director and Deputy Director of the Center while also serving as Director of West European Studies.  His publications include Economics and World Power: An Assessment of American Diplomacy Since 1789 (1984; co-editor), Strategic Defenses and Soviet-American Relations (1987;  co-editor), The Challenges of Power: American Diplomacy, 1900-1921 (1990; author), The Helsinki Process and the Future of Europe (1990; editor), New European Orders, 1919 and 1991 (1996; co-editor), The Quest for Sustained Growth: Southeast Asian and Southeast European Cases (1999; co-author), and “Transatlantic Ills,” Wilson Quarterly (Winter 2003).  He was also a contributor to and co-editor of The Strategic Triangle:France, Germany, and the United States in the Shaping of the New Europe (2006).

His most recent publications are “Centralizing Power: Domestic Considerations in the Shaping and Implementation of the War on Terror after 9/11,” in Pierre Melandri and Serge Ricard (eds.), La Politique exterieure des Etats-Unis au XXe siecle: le poids des determinants interieurs (2007); with Sherrill Brown Wells, “Shared Sovereignty in the European Union: Germany’s Economic Governance,” in Ernest R. May, Richard Rosecrance, and Zara Steiner (eds.), History and Neorealism  (2010); and “The Korean War: Miscalculation and alliance transformation,” in Basil Germond, Jussi M. Hanhimaki and Georges-Henri Soutou, The Routledge Handbook of Transatlantic Security (2010). 

Education

Ph.D. and M.A., History and International Relations, Harvard; A.B., History, University of North Carolina

Honors

Hoover Institution Peace Fellow, Wilson Center Fellow, and Institut Francais des Relations Internationales Visiting Scholar

Experience

Associate Director, Woodrow Wilson Center; Director of Wilson Center's West European Studies Program; Deputy Director, Woodrow Wilson Center; Director of the Wilson Center's Working Group on Global Finance; Director of International Security Studies Program of the Wilson Center; Consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and Associate Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Expertise

U.S. foreign and security policy, transatlantic relations, European Union, France

Project Summary

An analysis of the major strategic buildup launched by the Truman Administration as a result of the Korean War. The study will use Soviet, Chinese, and U.S. records to examine key decisions that resulted in the first major escalation of the Cold War and the transformation of NATO.

Major Publications

  • "The Korean War: Miscalculation and Alliance Transformation," Jussi Hanhimäki, Georges-Henri Soutou and Basil Garmond (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Transatlantic Relations (2010)
  • The Strategic Triangle: France, Germany, and the United States in the Shaping of the New Europe, coeditor (Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006)
  • The Quest for Sustained Growth: Southeast Asian and Southeast European Cases (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1999)
  • Economics and World Power: An Assessment of American Diplomacy Since 1789 (1984)
  • The Helsinki Process and the Future of Europe (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1990)
  • New European Orders, 1919 and 1991 (1996)
  • "Nuclear Weapons and European Security during the Cold War"
  • "France and NATO Under Mitterrand"
  • "The Clinton Administration and Regional Security: The First Two Years"

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