Join Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King's College London, for a seminar on peace diplomacy and the Russo-Ukraine War as part of the Calleva-Airey Neave Global Security Seminar Series.

Now in its third year, the Russo-Ukraine War has upended the post-Cold War security order and exposed deep fractures in the global balance of power. As Western unity frays, Russia courts new alliances, and US diplomacy shifts under President Trump, the war has become a flashpoint for competing visions of international peace and order. The talk will assess diplomatic efforts to end the Russo-Ukraine War from after the full-scale invasion to the more recent efforts by President Trump to get a deal. It will distinguish between a ceasefire and a full peace settlement, and the relative importance of territorial issues and security arrangements.

Sir Lawrence Freedman

Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman is Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King's College London. He was Professor of War Studies from 1982 to 2014 and Vice-Principal from 2003 to 2013.He was educated at the Universities of Manchester, York and Oxford. Before joining King's he held research appointments at Nuffield College Oxford, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. He was appointed Official Historian of the Falklands Campaign in 1997 and in June 2009 to serve as a member of the official inquiry into Britain and the 2003 Iraq War. He has written on international history, strategic theory and nuclear weapons issues, as well as commenting on current security issues. Among his recent books are Strategy: A History (2013), the Future of War: A History (2017), Ukraine and the Art of Strategy (2019) and, with Jeff Michaels, the 4th edition of The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (2019). His latest book is Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine (2022). With his son Sam, he co-authors Comment is Freed, the UK's most popular politics substack.