Professional Affiliation

Former Deputy and Associate Director, Woodrow Wilson Center; Former Director, West European Studies Program, Woodrow Wilson Center

Expert Bio

Samuel F. Wells has taught at both Wellesley College and 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 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). 

Wilson Center Project

"Legacies of the Korean War for U.S. Policies in East Asia."

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"