Professor Patrick Porter

Professor Patrick Porter

Department of Political Science and International Studies
Professor of International Security and Strategy

Contact details

Address
School of Government
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Patrick Porter is Professor of International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham. 

His research interests are great power politics, realism, foreign and defense policy in the US and UK, and the causes and consequences of decline.

He has written four books. His book Blunder: Britain's War in Iraq was shortlisted for the British Army Military Book of the Year Prize, 2019. His most recent book is The False Promise of Liberal Order: Nostalgia, Delusion and the Rise of Trump. He also wrote The Global Village Myth: Distance, War and the Limits of Power and Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes.

His work has appeared in journals including International Security, Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, International Affairs, the Washington Quarterly, The National Interest, Politico, The Critic, The New Statesman, Unherd, the Australian Financial Review, and many others.

 

He has appeared as an expert witness before the UK’s parliamentary Defence Select Committee, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee, and the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.

Qualifications

  • DPhil, Modern History, Magdalen College Oxford
  • BA(Hons)/LLB, University of Melbourne

Publications

Selected publications

(with David Blagden) “Desert Shield of the Republic? A Realist Case for Abandoning the Middle East”, Security Studies 30:1 (2021), pp.5-48. 

The False Promise of Liberal Order: Nostalgia, Delusion and The Rise of Trump (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020). 

‘Why America’s’ Grand Strategy Has Not Changed: Power, Habit and the U.S. Foreign Policy Establishment,’ International Security 42:4 (2018), pp.9-46. 

Blunder: Britain’s War in Iraq (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 

"Advice for a Dark Age: Managing Great Power Competition,” The Washington Quarterly 42:1 (April 2019), pp.7-25. 

‘Taking Uncertainty Seriously: Classical Realism and National Security’ European Journal of International Security 1:2 (2016), pp.239-260. 

The Global Village Myth: Distance, War and the Limits of Power (Georgetown University Press 2015) 

View all publications in research portal