JOINED THE DEPARTMENT
2021
BIO
Paul J. Welch Behringer is the University of Nebraska-Lincoln DPAA Research Partner Fellow. In this role, he conducts research in support of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s mission to provide families and the nation with the fullest possible accounting for United States service members, and associated civilian personnel, missing and unaccounted for from the country’s past conflicts.
Behringer’s academic research focuses on the history of U.S. foreign relations, particularly with Russia, the Soviet Union, and Japan. His book on the U.S. and Japanese intervention in the Russian Civil War (1918-1922) is under contract with Oxford University Press. The book examines the intervention as a reaction to the collapse of the Russian Empire and analyzes its impact on the Russian Far East and U.S.-Soviet-Japanese relations. Before coming to UNL, Behringer was a postdoctoral fellow at Southern Methodist University’s Center for Presidential History, where he leads the oral history project on U.S.-Russian relations during the administrations of George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin (2001-2009). In Spring 2023 at UNL, he is scheduled to teach United States Military History since 1917 (HIST-304).
In 2021, Behringer’s dissertation was awarded the Betty M. Unterberger Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the André Corvisier Prize from the International Commission of Military History. Prior to completing his Ph.D. at American University in 2020, Behringer was an Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (2018-2020). In 2017-2018, his archival research in Vladivostok and Moscow was supported by the Fulbright U.S. Student Program and American Councils Title VIII funding.
Behringer is not an employee of DPAA, he supports DPAA through a partnership. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of DPAA, DoD or its Components.
PUBLICATIONS
Books:
- Intervention on Empire’s Edge: The United States, Japan, and the Russian Civil War, under contract with Oxford University Press (expected release Fall 2023).
Journal Articles:
- “‘Mad Mongols’, Uncivilised Russians: Violence and US Intervention in the Russian Civil War in the Far East,” International Journal of Military History and Historiography (2022), in press.
- “Images of Empire: Depictions of America in Late Imperial Russian Editorial Cartoons,” Russian History 45, no. 4 (2018), 279–318. https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04504001.
- “‘Forewarned Is Forearmed’: Intelligence, Japan’s Siberian Intervention, and the Washington Conference.” The International History Review 38, no. 3 (2016): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2015.1086887.
Book Chapters:
- “Vospriiatie amerikantsami nasiliia vo vremia Grazhdanskoi voiny na Dal’nem Vostoke Rossii [American Perceptions of Violence during the Civil War in the Russian Far East],” in Velikaia Rossiiskaia Revoliutsiia 1917 g. v sud’bakh stran i narodov mira [The Great Russian Revolution of 1917 in the Fates of the Countries and Peoples of the World], ed. L. I. Galliamova (Vladivostok: IIAE DVO RAN, 2018), 63–73.
DIGITAL/ORAL HISTORY PROJECTS
- Oral History Lead Scholar, “U.S.-Russian Relations under Bush and Putin,” Collective Memory Project, Center for Presidential History, Southern Methodist University. https://www.smu.edu/Dedman/Research/Institutes-and-Centers/Center-for-Presidential-History/CMP/US-Russian-Relations-under-Bush-and-Putin
AWARDS
- Betty M. Unterberger Dissertation Prize, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (2021)
- André Corvisier Dissertation Prize, International Commission of Military History (2021)
MAJOR GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS
- American Councils Title VIII Research and Language Award (Moscow) 2018
- Fulbright Student Research Award, Russia (Vladivostok) 2017
MEDIA COMMENTARY
Op-Eds:
- “What Would Richard Pipes Say Today?” coauthored with Michael Jindra, American Purpose, 20 May 2022, https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/what-would-richard-pipes-say-today/
- “Why it’s a bad idea to close US consulates in Russia,” Responsible Statecraft, 29 January 2021, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/01/29/why-its-a-bad-idea-to-close-us-consulates-in-russia/
- “Biden’s Inaugural and the Return of History,” History News Network, 25 January 2021, https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/178893
- “Self-delusion and Forgetting History in Afghanistan,” coauthored with Nathaniel L. Moir, RealClearDefense, 17 December 2019, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/12/17/self-delusion_and_forgetting_history_in_afghanistan_114926.html
- “What History Tells about the Trump-Kim Summit in Hanoi,” The National Interest, 25 February 2019, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-history-tells-about-trump-kim-summit-hanoi-45547
Interviews:
- Sharron Conrad, Jeffrey Engel, and Lindsay Chervinsky, “Episode 11: Woodrow Wilson,” The Past, the Promise, and the Presidency Podcast, 3 December 2020. https://www.pastpromisepresidency.com/
- Aleksei Smyslov and Sandzhar Khamidov. “100-letie Amerikanskogo ekspeditsionnogo korpusa v Sibiri” [100th anniversary of the American expeditionary corps in Siberia], Voice of America Russia TV, 16 August 2018. https://www.golos-ameriki.ru/a/pkg-cta-amrican-expedition-forces-august-15-2018/4530278.html
- Lucian Kim. “In Russia, Scant Traces and Negative Memories of a Century-old U.S. Intervention,” NPR.org (print) and Morning Edition (audio), 28 May 2018. https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/05/28/608455970/in-russia-scant-traces-and-negative-memories-of-a-century-old-u-s-intervention