Professional Affiliation

Professor of Public Policy and History; Dean Emeritus, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University

Expert Bio

Bruce Kuniholm is the Dean Emeritus of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, where he is a Professor of Public Policy and History. He holds previous fellowships from the Council on Foreign Relations/National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and his interests include the history of the Cold War, the uses of history and public policy, and US policy in the Middle East. He has served in the US Marine Corps, as well as in the State Department (in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and on the Policy Planning Staff).

Wilson Center Project

“The Azerbaijan/Turkish Crisis of 1946”

Project Summary

The project will explore the symbiotic relationship between the present and the past (between deductive and inductive thinking) when it comes to historical understanding—an understanding that is constantly changing and that is informed, however problematically, not only by new information, but also by hindsight, where decisions can be second-guessed, mostly through counterfactuals; and explore the symbiotic relationship between the present and the future (both relationships involve the same dynamic) when it comes to crafting public policies for the future, with a view to thinking more creatively about how decision makers arrive at policy options (based on what Ernest May called “imagining alternative futures”), and, once policies are decided, about the constant need to re-examine assumptions, rethink goals and articulate new policies in light of an evolving context and in response to changing circumstances and unintended consequences as they develop.

Major Publications

Kuniholm, B. The United States and Turkey. 2003.

Kuniholm, B. The Palestine Problem and United States Policy, with an annotated bibliography by Michael Rubner. Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 1986.

Kuniholm, B. The Persian Gulf and United States Policy. Claremont: CA: Regina Books, 1984.

Kuniholm, B. The Near East Connection: Greece and Turkey in the Reconstruction and Security of Europe, 1946-1952. Brookline, Mass.: Hellenic Press, 1984.

Kuniholm, B. The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East: Great Power Conflict and Diplomacy in Iran, Turkey, and Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.