Learn more about the people, programs, and publications at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs
“The contemporary world is characterized by global upheaval resulting from differences in culture, values, history, and evolution. International studies need to focus on the confluence of these trends, permitting the development of a grand strategy. The Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS will develop a multi-disciplinary approach to world order with special emphasis on historical and cultural evolution." Henry A. Kissinger
Generate new ideas
Through the research and writing of our distinguished faculty, fellows, and scholars
Train tomorrow’s leaders
Through innovative classes and curricula, the center seeks to revitalize the practice of diplomatic and military history and to examine the global order
Convene academics and practitioners
Through public and private programming which engages current leaders and new voices in their fields
OUR PEOPLE
We bring together distinguished scholars and practitioners in foreign policy and international security
Francis Gavin
Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor, Director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs
Mary Sarotte
Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies, Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs
Featured News
Henry A. Kissinger and the Question of World Order Conference
The Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs and the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy hosted a conference on “Henry A. Kissinger and the Question of World Order.” Scholars and practitioners from around the world debated questions of history and the international system that Kissinger, as both a scholar and a statesman, had spent his life pondering.
Read about the conference hereProfessor Sergey Radchenko Wins Gelber Prize
On April 9, 2025, Janice Stein, director of the University of Toronto’s Munk School, awarded Sergey Radchenko, the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, with the Lionel Gelber Prize. This award, which honors the world’s best work on foreign policy, recognized Prof. Radchenko’s 2024 book To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power.
Stein hailed his work as a newly minted classic that “will endure,” a reinterpretation of the Cold War rooted in history but whose insights span political science, anthropology, sociology, and psychology, that left the prize jury “blown away.” To Run the World wades into the fraught debate over whether the Cold War was driven more by ideology (the clash between capitalist democracy and communist dictatorship) or by national interest (the cold-blooded calculations of realpolitik) and suggests a third, overlooked option: recognition.
Radchenko shines a spotlight on how Moscow and Beijing, and great powers and their leaders more broadly, crave respect and legitimacy from allies and rivals alike. In examining thousands of declassified Soviet archival documents, Radchenko found overwhelming evidence of Kremlin leaders’ desire for recognition: by China of the Soviets’ preeminent status within global communism, and by America of their status as co-superpowers who would “run the world together.” Radchenko’s archival work also reveals disquieting wrinkles to the Cold War narrative—such as Leonid Brezhnev’s racist disdain for his Chinese comrades while trying to bond with Richard Nixon as fellow “Europeans.”
To Run the World reframes the Cold War history we thought we knew, and contains key insights for today, in a new era when China seeks recognition as a peer superpower, and when Russian resentment and rage has dragged Europe back into war.
You can watch the 2025 Lionel Gelber Prize ceremony and lecture here.
Recent Book Talk - "No Country for Love"
Recent Book Talk - "No Country for Love"
The Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs and the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center partnered to host Yaroslav Trofimov, Chief Foreign-Affairs Correspondent at The Wall Street Journal, as he discussed his latest book, No Country for Love, in conversation with SAIS professor Sergey Radchenko.
This event was part of the Authors & Insights, series of in-depth conversations with some of today’s most compelling authors and thinkers exploring the issues that shape our world.
Learn more about the series.
The event took place on Monday, February 24 at 1:00 PM. It was held at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center room 820.
Our Publications
Explore our latest scholarship
The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World
Hal Brands, a renowned expert on global affairs, argues that a better understanding of Eurasia’s strategic geography can illuminate the contours of rivalry and conflict in today’s world. The Eurasian Century explains how revolutions in technology and warfare, and the rise of toxic ideologies of conquest, made Eurasia the center of twentieth-century geopolitics—with pressing implications for the struggles that will define the twenty-first.
To Run The World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Dominance
What would it feel like To Run the World? The Soviet rulers spent the Cold War trying desperately to find out. In this panoramic new history of the conflict that defined the postwar era, Sergey Radchenko provides an unprecedented deep dive into the psychology of the Kremlin's decision-making. He reveals how the Soviet struggle with the United States and China reflected its irreconcilable ambitions as a self-proclaimed superpower and the leader of global revolution. This tension drove Soviet policies from Stalin's postwar scramble for territory to Khrushchev's reckless overseas adventurism and nuclear brinksmanship, Brezhnev's jockeying for influence in the third world, and Gorbachev's failed attempts to reinvent Moscow's claims to greatness. Perennial insecurities, delusions of grandeur, and desire for recognition propelled Moscow on a headlong quest for global power, with dire consequences and painful legacies that continue to shape our world.
War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World
In War in Ukraine, Hal Brands brings together an all-star cast of analysts to assess the conflict's origins, course, and implications and to offer their appraisals of one of the most geopolitically consequential crises of the early twenty-first century. Essays cover topics including the twists and turns of the war itself, the successes and failures of US strategy, the impact of sanctions, the future of Russia and its partnership with China, and more.
The Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Plenty: Rethinking International Relations and American Grand Strategy in a New Era
In this Adelphi book, Francis J. Gavin argues that the institutions, practices, theories and policies that helped explain and largely tamed scarcity by generating massive prosperity, and which were sometimes used to justify punishing conquest, are often unsuitable for addressing the problems of plenty. Successful grand strategy in this new age of abundance requires new thinking. New conceptual lenses, innovative policies and processes, and transformed institutions will be essential for confronting and solving the problems of plenty, without undermining the expanding efforts against scarcity.
The New Makers of Modern Strategy
Professor Hal Brands edited The New Makers of Modern Strategy, is the next generation of the definitive work on strategy and the key figures who have shaped the theory and practice of war and statecraft throughout the centuries. Featuring new entries by world-class scholars, this new edition provides global, comparative perspectives on strategic thought from antiquity to today, surveying both classical and current themes of strategy while devoting greater attention to the Cold War and post-9/11 eras.
Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China
Professor Brands is joined by Professor Beckley of Tufts University in a "provocative and urgent" analysis of the U.S - China relationship and rivalry.
Featured Title: Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate
In her newest book, Professor Mary Elise Sarotte explores the profound impact of NATO expansion on US-Russia relations since the Cold War, revealing missed opportunities and drawing on newly declassified documents and over 100 interviews.
The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us about Great-Power Rivalry Today
America is entering an era of long-term great power competition with China and Russia. In this innovative and illuminating book, Hal Brands, a leading historian and former Pentagon adviser, argues that America should look to the history of the Cold War for lessons on how to succeed in great-power rivalry today.
Our Programs
Our programs and projects examine crucial topics in history, strategy, and statecraft
AJI is a four-university, transatlantic consortium, which in collaboration with the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit, will recruit, train, and mentor the next generation of historically-minded scholars and practitioners in statecraft, diplomacy, and strategy.
A project that creates a cohort of scholar-practitioners who understand the problems and perspectives of the world of academia and practice and can successfully pursue careers in both.
The overarching aim of this program is to deepen transatlantic relations by strengthening the Kissinger Center – and in it, the German/European perspective – in conducting research, providing teaching, and to inform and engage a wider audience in debates concerning the transatlantic relationship, international security, and the role of Germany and Europe in the future world order.
The America in the World Consortium aims to prepare the next generation to confront geopolitical challenges and understand American national interests abroad to participate in the debate about America’s role in the world.
Founding Donors
The Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs was made possible by the extraordinary leadership of Johns Hopkins University alumnus and former board chair Michael R. Bloomberg and by generous gifts from individual donors, corporations, and private foundations.