On April 16, 2026, Phillips O'Brien delivered his keynote speech of the 32nd Annual REECAS Northwest, an official regional conference of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES). Phillips OBrien gave a lecture on European Strategy and the Ukraine War, a look at how Europe has reacted strategically to the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Professor Phillips O’Brien is the Chair of Strategic Studies and Head of the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He has published widely on issues of conflict, politics, war and strategy in the 20th and 21st centuries. Amongst his books are: How the War was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, FDR’s Chief of Staff, (Penguin/Random House 2015). He has also published multiple articles in major journals including Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic History, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and, Past and Present. In 2024 he published a new multi-archival study of grand-strategy making in World War II with Penguin/Random House, entitled: The Strategists: How Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt were Made by and Made War. In 2025 he published his latest book, War and Power: Who Wins Wars and Why.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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