Dr Natasha Kuhrt is a Senior Lecturer in International Peace and Security in the Department of War Studies. After gaining a BA first class hons in Russian & German language and literature followed by an MA in Soviet Studies, at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (University of London), she spent several years in publishing before obtaining a PhD at UCL on Russian Policy Towards China and Japan. Dr Kuhrt joined King’s as a visiting lecturer in the Law School in 2002, before going full time in the Department of War Studies in 2009.

Her main teaching has been on the MA in International Peace and Security Programme and in international law and intervention, but she has also delivered guest lectures in the department including on gender and nationalism and Russia’s discourse on memory and history.

In 2011 she established the British International Studies Association Working Group on Russian & Eurasian Security within BISA and she remains co-convenor of this active group with two colleagues at Open University and Glasgow University. 

Dr Kuhrt is a member of BISA, Chatham House, ISA, ASEN and BASEES.

Research Interests

• Russian and Eurasian security/foreign policy especially in Asia.
• International law; Humanitarian Intervention and Responsibility to Protect
• Nationalism and identity; populism
• Regions and Regionalism

Her interest in Russia and Eurasia has led her to engage more deeply with issues related to regionalism in general, and Eurasian and Asia-Pacific regionalism more specifically. She also has a growing interest in the role of India in the broader Asian/Asia-Pacific region. Her interest in intervention and peacekeeping has led to research in Russian activism in Africa and the nexus with UN peacekeeping missions. She is also currently working with colleagues at Birmingham, Manchester and Japanese academics, on an ESRC UK-Japan project on comparative populism in context. Further, she is collaborating on an British Academy project on ‘Rescaling the Border: Nationalism and Civilisationalism in Central and Eastern Europe’. 

 

Publications

Book chapters

• 2021 -'Conflicting Norms of Intervention: When and How to Use Military Force?', in: Sten Rynning; Oliver Schmitt; Amelie Theussen eds., War Time: Temporality and the Decline of Western Military Power, (Washington D.C: Brookings Institution/Chatham House) https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/03/war-time-temporality-and-decline-western-military-power
• 2021 -‘1917 in 2017: A “useless” past? Remembering and Forgetting the Russian revolution’, in: Rachel Kerr; Henry Redwood and James Gow eds., Reconciliation after War: Historical Perspectives on Transitional Justice, (London & New York: Routledge Contemporary Security Studies) https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780429345395/reconciliation-war-rachel-kerr-henry-redwood-james-gow

 

Articles

• 2021 Kuhrt, N., & Kerr, R., The International Criminal Court, preliminary examinations, and the Security Council: Kill or cure? Journal of Global Faultlines, 8(2), 172–185. https://doi.org/10.13169/jglobfaul.8.2.0172
• 2019 (with Filippo Costa Buranelli). ‘Russia and the CIS in 2018: regionalism or transregionalism?’, Asian Survey 59:1, pp.44-53.

Briefings/policy papers

• 2022 (with M.David) 'Russia and the UK: the integrated review in light of Russia's war in Ukraine', https://www.kcl.ac.uk/russia-and-the-uk-the-integrated-review-in-light-of-russias-war-in-ukraine
• 2022 (with M.Kaczmarski) 'Ukraine invasion: why China is more likely to support Russia than in the past', https://theconversation.com/ukraine-invasion-why-china-is-more-likely-to-support-russia-than-in-the-past-177854
• 2022 'Die Bedeutung des russichen fernen Ostens fuer die Asien-und Pazifik-Politik Russlands', Ausgabe 412,Russlandanalysen, https://laender-analysen.de/russland-analysen/412/die-bedeutung-des-russischen-fernen-ostens-fuer-die-asien-und-pazifik-politik-russlands/

Current projects

Dr Kuhrt has a book contract with Polity Press for a co-authored volume on Russian foreign policy. She also has a contract with Edinburgh University Press to co-author a book on Russia-China relations.

Please see the Research Portal for a full publications list or download selected highlights here

Public engagement

Dr Kuhrt has briefed the FCDO and Cabinet office on a number of occasions, and provides regular commentary on the Russia-Ukraine war; Russia-China relations and International law to BBC TV and radio; France 24; CBC; LBC; Arirang TV; al Jazeera Arabic and others.

Teaching

• 5SSW2063 BA2 option International Law, Human Rights & Intervention
• 6SSW3036 BA3 option ‘War and Genocide’
• 6SSW3037 BA3 option ‘6SSW3037 Contending with legacies of violence and atrocity: Transitional justice, peace and reconciliation’.
• 7SSWN031 ‘Law and conflict in international society’ core module.

 

PhD Supervision

Completed supervision:

• Neil Dawson, 'Knowledge, Power, Identity: Palestinian Intellectuals and the Discourse of a One-State Solution '
• Camilla Hagelund, 'Underlying dynamics of regional (dis)integration in Post-Soviet Central Asia. '
• Filippo Costa Buranelli, 'International Society and Central Asia.'
• Elene Melikishvili, 'Securitisation of Minor Differences: Security and Conflict in the South Caucasus '
• Junzhi Liu, 'China’s Grand Strategy Making and the Belt and Road.'
• Onur Kara, ‘Exit the President: Coercive Institutions and Regime Breakdown in Tunisia.’
• Agne Cepinskyte, 'The Socio-Political Factor in Great Power Politics: Analysis of the Weimar Republic and Post-Soviet Russia’s Political Discourse Towards the Baltic States '
• Yulia Kiseleva, 'Soft Power in Russian Foreign Policy'.
• Alejandro Sueldo, 'Nuclear Weapons States: Post-Cold War Deterrence and the Use of Force' 

Current PhD Students

• Rolandas Simkevicus, ‘Security Imaginaries in Contemporary European-Japanese Political Alignment’.
• Robert Lee, 'Russian arms exports during the Putin Era’.
• Kimberley Metcalf, 'Russian Identity Production in Post-Soviet & Post-Socialist Era Conflicts'.

Dr Kuhrt is accepting prospective PhD students in the following areas:

• Russian foreign and security policy in general (in particular Russia/Asia with an emphasis on China);
• Russian narratives on history/memory; international law with an emphasis on UN Security Council practice, R2P and peacekeeping; nationalism