HEUSER, Beatrice 1961-

PERSONAL:

Born March 15, 1961, in Bangkok, Thailand. Education: Bedford College (London, England), B.A., 1981; London School of Economics and Political Science (London, England), M.A., 1982; Oxford University, D.Phil., 1988.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Military History Research Institute of the Bundeswehr, Zeppelinstr. 127/128, D-14471 Pottsdam, Germany.

CAREER:

University of Reims, Reims, France, lecturer, 1991; University of London, King's College, London, England, lecturer in war studies, 1991-2001, chair of international and strategic studies, 2001-2003; Military History Research Institute of the Bundeswehr, Potsdam, Germany, director of research, 2003—. Has served as a consultant to the British Ministry of Defense, the European Commission, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

MEMBER:

International Institute for Strategic Studies, British International Studies Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellow of MacArthur Foundation and Social Science Research Council in Paris, France and Munich, Germany, 1989-91.

WRITINGS:

Western "Containment" Policies in the Cold War: The Yugoslav Case, 1948-1953, Routledge & Kegan Paul (New York, NY), 1989.

(Editor) Nuclear Weapons and the Future of European Security, Brassey's for the Centre for Defence Studies (London, England), 1991.

(Editor) Securing Peace in Europe, 1945-62: Thoughts for the Post-Cold War Era, Macmillan, 1992.

Transatlantic Relations: Sharing Ideas and Costs, Cassell USA (New York, NY), 1996.

NATO, Britain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949-2000, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor, with Cyril Buffet) Haunted by History: Myths in International Relations, Berghahn Books (Providence, RI), 1998.

Nuclear Mentalities?: Strategies and Belief in Britain, France, and the FRG, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1998.

The Bomb: Nuclear Weapons in Their Historical, Strategic, and Ethical Context, Longman (New York, NY), 1999.

(Editor, with Anja V. Hartmann) War, Peace, and World Orders in European History, Routledge (New York, NY), 2001.

Reading Clausewitz, Pimlico (London, England), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Beatrice Heuser is a scholar of war and the complex political relations that both create and avoid it. She has served as a consultant to such international organizations as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and her research has revealed to the public some startling facts about how tenuous peace has been in the nuclear age. By digging through archived records and conducting interviews with military leaders, for example, she was able to show that a nuclear exchange almost occurred in Europe in 1983 as a result of a NATO exercise that greatly intimidated East Germany. Her published books have also helped clarify the problems that nuclear weapons have posed to peace negotiators, as well as showing how war has shaped the political landscape over the ages.

In NATO, Britain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949-2000, Heuser questions "the credibility of nuclear deterrence," according to Tom Buchanan in English Historical Review. Here, the author explains how NATO struggled to maintain a balance between the Europeans and the Americans, who held differing views on how nuclear deterrence should work, and how strategically vulnerable West Germany became a political battleground between each side. Buchanan concluded that Heuser's book "expertly explores" these issues.

Heuser has approached the subject of war more generally in her other books, such as in War, Peace and World Orders in European History, which she edited with Anja V. Hartmann. This collection of scholarly essays discusses changes in international relations all the way back to the Roman Empire and continuing on through the Middle Ages and the modern era. Heuser has also written a guide to the seminal book by Karl von Clausewitz, On War. Her Reading Clausewitz helps clarify why there are contradictions in Clausewitz's work (a change in philosophy caused him to rewrite much of the book) and that On War should be seen as a guide on "how to think about war rather than what to think," as Michael Howard reported in English Historical Review. Although Howard maintained that this conclusion is "hardly original," the reviewer concluded that Heuser's was a valuable contribution to researchers. In Times Literary Supplement Ian Beckett wrote that Heuser "makes a good case for the enduring significance of [Clausewitz's] identification of the essential building blocks to an understanding of conflict."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, October, 1991, Robin Alison Remington, review of Western "Containment" Policies in the Cold War: The Yugoslav Case, 1948-53, p. 1167.

Contemporary Review, January, 2002, review of War, Peace and World Orders in European History, p. 64; August, 2002, review of Reading Clausewitz, p. 123.

English Historical Review, February, 2000, Tom Buchanan, review of NATO, Britain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949-2000, p. 263; November, 2002, Michael Howard, review of Reading Clausewitz, p. 1357.

International Affairs, July, 1992, Brian Thomas, review of Securing Peace in Europe, 1945-62: Thoughts for the Post-Cold War Era, p. 538; October, 1998, Trevor Salmon, review of NATO, Britain, France and the FRG, p. 927; January, 1999, Christopher Hill, review of Haunted by History: Myths in International Relations, p. 129, and Shaun Gregory, review of Nuclear Mentalities?: Strategies and Beliefs in Britain, France and the FRG, p. 151.

Survival, summer, 1998, Roberto Zadra, review of NATO, Britain, France and the FRG, p. 195.

Times Literary Supplement, February 14, 2003, Ian Beckett, "By Other Means," p. 26.