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Simon Miles, Associate Professor  

Office Location: 130 Rubenstein Hall, Box 90312, Durham, NC 27708-0312
Email Address: simon.miles@duke.edu

Areas of Expertise

    Education:
    Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin, 2017
    M.A., London School of Economics (United Kingdom), 2011
    B.A., University of Toronto (Canada), 2010

    Teaching (Spring 2026):

    • Pubpol 224.01, Russia in the world Synopsis
      Sanford 03, MW 03:05 PM-04:20 PM

    Office Hours:
    Mondays, 2:00pm–3:30pm

    Recent Publications   (More Publications)

    1. Miles, S. "We All Fall Down: The Dismantling of the Warsaw Pact and the End of the Cold War in Eastern Europe." International Security 48.3 (January, 2024): 51-85. [doi]
    2. Miles, S. "The Second Cold War: Carter, Reagan, and the Politics of Foreign Policy." JOURNAL OF COLD WAR STUDIES 24.2 (2022): 164-166.
    3. Miles, S. "The Problems of Perestroika: The KGB and Mikhail Gorbachev's Reforms." Slavic Review 80.4 (January, 2021): 816-838. [doi]  [abs]
    4. Miles, S. "Peace Through Strength and Quiet Diplomacy: Grand Strategy Lessons from the Reagan Administration." Before and After the Fall World Politics and the End of the Cold War. January, 2021: 62-77. [doi]  [abs]
    5. Miles, S. "What Is at Stake Now: My Appeal for Peace and Freedom." RUSSIAN REVIEW 80.3 (2021): 540-541.

    Highlight:

    Simon Miles joined the faculty of the Sanford School of Public Policy in 2017. He is an expert on Russia and the Soviet Union whose research focuses primarily on Cold War diplomatic and military history and its relevance to our world today. His first book, Engaging the Evil Empire: Washington, Moscow and the Beginning of the End of the Cold War, published in 2020 by Cornell University Press, uses international archives — from both sides of the Iron Curtain — to explain how and why the US-Soviet rivalry underwent such unexpected and profound change in the 1980s that it has since become a textbook case of adversaries setting aside disagreements and cooperating. Simon is currently working on his second book, On Guard for Peace and Socialism: The Warsaw Pact, 1955–1991, under advance contract with Princeton University Press. Drawing on archival materials from all of the Pact’s eight former members, it examines the ways in which each conceived of and provided for their own security in the nuclear age, individually and as a politico-military alliance. It also holds a mirror up to US and NATO strategy during the Cold War: identifying the real motivations behind Soviet and Warsaw Pact behavior, disaggregating correlation and causation with strategy on the other side of the Iron Curtain. At Duke, Simon teaches courses on grand strategy, military and diplomatic history, Russia, and the Cold War.

    Simon Miles

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