David Welch

The BSIA Director administers day-to-day operations for the school and offers leadership by upholding BSIA’s vision and reputation, fostering strong relationships with collaborating institutions, and pursuing opportunities for advancement.

  • David Welch
  • CIGI Chair of Global Security, Director of BSIA
  • Department of Political Science (UW)
  • Office Location: BSIA 220
  • E-mail Address: david@davidwelch.ca
  • Phone Number: 226.772.3077
  • Personal Website

Background

David A. Welch is CIGI Chair of Global Security at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. His 2005 book Painful Choices: A Theory of Foreign Policy Change (Princeton University Press) is the inaugural winner of the International Studies Association ISSS Book Award for the best book published in 2005 or 2006, and his 1993 book Justice and the Genesis of War (Cambridge University Press) is the winner of the 1994 Edgar S. Furniss Award for an Outstanding Contribution to National Security Studies.

Welch is co-author of Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation 8th ed. (Pearson Longman, 2010); Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy had Lived (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009); The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Concise History (Oxford University Press, 2007; 2nd ed. 2011); On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis (1st ed., Hill and Wang, 1989; 2nd ed., Noonday 1990); and Cuba on the Brink: Castro, The Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse (Pantheon, 1993; 2nd ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).

Welch is also co-editor of Japan as a 'Normal Country'? A Nation In Search of Its Place in the World (University of Toronto Press, 2011) and Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis (Frank Cass, 1998).  His articles have appeared in Asian Perspective, Ethics and International Affairs, Foreign Affairs, The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Intelligence and National Security, International Security, International Journal, International Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Mershon International Studies Review, The Review of International Studies, and Security Studies.  He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1990.

Select Publications

  • Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy had Lived. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009 (with James G. Blight and janet M. Lang). [She spells her first name with a lower-case j.]
  • "Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis for Nuclear Crisis Management and their Implications for U.S.-Chinese Relations," in Christopher Twomey, ed., Perspectives on Sino-American Strategic Nuclear Issues (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 13-38.
  • The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Concise History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007 (with Don Munton.)
  • "The Impact of the 'Vietnam Syndrome' on U.S. Foreign Policy in a Post-Cold War World," in Robert A. Patman, ed., Globalization and Conflict (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 95-113.
  • Painful Choices: A Theory of Foreign Policy Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Academic/Professional Awards

  • American Political Science Association and Pi Sigma Alpha National Political Science Honor Society Award for Outstanding Teaching in Political Science (2008).
  • Faculty of Arts and Science Outstanding Teaching Award, University of Toronto (2008).
  • Inaugural International Studies Association ISSS Best Book Award for 2005 and 2006; for Painful Choices: A Theory of Foreign Policy Change (2008).
  • 1994 Edgar S. Furniss Book Award for an Outstanding Contribution to National Security Studies, Mershon Centre, Ohio State University; for Justice and the Genesis of War (1996).