Professor Patrick Porter

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

Contact details

Email: p.porter@bham.ac.uk
Twitter: @PatPorter76

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 realism, great power politics and foreign and defense policy. His current area of interest is International Relations and Ancient History, and the interdisciplinary dialogue between them, in particular debates over the causes of Roman imperialism.

He has appeared as an expert witness before Parliamentary Select Committees: Defence, Foreign Affairs, the House of Lords Committee on International Relations and Defence, and the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.

Qualifications

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

Teaching

POLS218, International Security
LM Nuclear Weapons in International Relations

Research

He is completing a book about Winston Churchill’s diplomacy, Churchill as Appeaser: The Bulldog’s Prudence, 1931-1935.

He has written five books. His latest book is How to Survive a Hostile World: Power, Politics and the Case for Realism, published with Stanford University Press, 2025.

His book Blunder: Britain's War in Iraq was shortlisted for the British Army Military Book of the Year Prize, 2019.

He also wrote The False Promise of Liberal Order: Nostalgia, Delusion and the Rise of Trump; The Global Village Myth: Distance, War and the Limits of Power and Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes.

His work has appeared in academic journals including International Security, Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, International Affairs and Journal of Global Security Studies.

In the wider public domain, he has written for The Critic, where is he Contributing Editor, as well as The New Statesman, Literary Review, First Things, The Washington Quarterly, The National Interest, Politico, Unherd, and Australian Financial Review.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Porter, P 2025, How to Survive a Hostile World: Power, Politics, and the Case for Realism. 1 edn, Stanford University Press. <https://www.sup.org/books/politics/how-survive-hostile-world>

Porter, P 2020, The False Promise of Liberal Order: Nostalgia, Delusion and the Rise of Trump. 1st edn, Polity Press. <https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509538676&subject_id=5>

Porter, P 2018, Blunder: Britain's War in Iraq. Oxford University Press, Oxford. <https://global.oup.com/academic/product/blunder-9780198807964?q=Blunder&lang=en&cc=au>

Porter, P 2015, The Global Village Myth: Distance, War and the Limits of Power. Georgetown University Press. <http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/global-village-myth>

Article

Porter, P 2023, 'Out of the Shadows: The Shock of Non-Hybrid War', Journal of Global Security Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, ogad014. https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogad014

Porter, P & Blagden, D 2021, 'Desert shield of the republic? A realist case for abandoning the Middle East', Security Studies, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 5-48. https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2021.1885727

Morefield, J & Porter, P 2020, 'Revenge of the forever wars: The US can’t reform its domestic policing without first liberating itself from its own foreign policy. ', New Statesman, vol. 149, no. 5524, pp. 13-14.

Porter, P 2018, 'Why American Grand Strategy Has Not Changed: Power, Habit and the U.S. Foreign Policy Establishment', International Security, vol. 42, no. 4, 1, pp. 9-46. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00311

Porter, P 2016, 'Taking Uncertainty Seriously: Classical Realism and National Security', European Journal of International Security , vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 239-260. https://doi.org/10.1017/eis.2016.4

View all publications in research portal