U.S.–Russia Relations
After the Soviet collapse
Partnership, mistrust, diplomacy, and the choices that shaped relations between Washington and Moscow after 1991.
Historian · Writer · Researcher
Power after
the Cold War.
American foreign policy, Russia, and the contested international order of the 1990s.
Explore the research
About
From military history to the post-Soviet world.
My path to foreign-policy history began with a family archive documenting an American airman held as a prisoner of war by Nazi Germany.
That project raised broader questions about military strategy, state responsibility, international law, and what happens to individuals when political and military institutions fail.
Russian-language study and archival research carried those questions into the post-Soviet era. My dissertation now examines how American and Russian officials tried to construct a new security order during the 1990s—and why cooperation hardened into mistrust.
Beyond the archive
Photography is another part of how I study place, memory, scale, and political space. The images throughout this site come from research travel and fieldwork.
Research
The United States, Russia, and the Post–Cold War Security Order, 1992–2000
The 1990s were not simply an interval between the Cold War and renewed rivalry. They were a contested attempt to define partnership, sovereignty, economic reform, and the rules of international security.
My dissertation reconstructs that effort through diplomacy, economic assistance, security cooperation, and competing visions of political order. It asks how American and Russian officials imagined the relationship after the Soviet collapse, where their assumptions converged, and how disagreement hardened into mistrust.
Period1992–2000
FocusUnited States · Russia
ApproachDiplomatic · International · Multi-Archive History
LanguagesRussian · Spanish
For Media
Historical context for current questions.
Available for interviews, background conversations, podcasts, panels, and research inquiries.
American Foreign Policy
The United States in the 1990s
Primacy, intervention, economic assistance, security cooperation, and changing ideas about America’s role in the world.
International Order
What came after the Cold War
Sovereignty, institutions, hierarchy, and competing visions of international cooperation.
Military History
POWs, institutions, and wartime memory
American prisoners of war, military institutions, veterans, and the public memory of conflict.
Short biography
Holly Harris is a historian of U.S.–Russia relations and American foreign policy. A Ph.D. candidate and University Ph.D. Fellow at Southern Methodist University, she studies how Washington and Moscow attempted to construct a new international security order during the 1990s—and why cooperation gave way to mistrust.
CV
Selected academic record
The main appointments, awards, publications, and research activity behind my work.
Education
2023–present
Ph.D. Candidate, History · University Ph.D. Fellow
Southern Methodist University
2026
M.A., History
Southern Methodist University
2019–2023
B.A., History · Chancellor’s Scholar
Texas Christian University
Selected grants, awards & fellowships
2026
Clinton Presidential Research Fellowship
Clinton Foundation
2025
Title VIII Scholarship, U.S. Department of State
American Councils
2024–2025
Portal to Texas History Fellowship
University of North Texas
2023–2024
Clark–Yudkin Fellowship
United States Air Force Academy
2022–2023
Gilder Lehrman Institute College Fellow
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Selected publications
Forthcoming
When They Came Home: Soldiers and American Society from the Revolution to January 6
Co-editor with Lindsay Chervinsky · University of Virginia Press
Forthcoming
“Surviving the Twilight Struggle: American Prisoners of War in the Holocaust”
In The US Military and the Holocaust · Texas A&M University Press
Research leadership
Founder, Cold Warriors Research ClusterDedman College Interdisciplinary Institute · Southern Methodist University
Selected presentation
“Unfinished Order: Rebuilding Global Economic Governance with the Russian Federation”Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations · 2026
Photography
Field notes in images.
Selected photographs from cities, landscapes, archives, and research travel—a visual record alongside the written one.
Contact
Media · research · speaking
Get in touch.
For interviews, research correspondence, speaking invitations, and academic collaboration:
hlharris@smu.edu