Areas of Research

• Arms control, disarmament, and international security
• Theory and practice of international regimes
• Comparative foreign and defence policy and military strategies
• Nuclear non-proliferation: NPT, safeguards, and international cooperation for non-proliferation
• Great power relations: US-Russia-China, alliance relations, and NATO
• The nexus between domestic and foreign policy

Background

Dr. Nikolai Sokov was born in Moscow. He graduated from the Department of History of Moscow State University in 1981 and subsequently worked at the Institute of US and Canadian Studies (1981-86) and the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (1985-87), both at the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences in 1986.

From 1987 to 1992, Dr. Sokov worked at the Ministry of Foreign Relations of the USSR/Russian Federation. He participated in INF, START I, START II and other arms control negotiations as well as numerous summits and ministerial meetings.

Dr. Sokov joined the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in 1996. Between 2011 and 2014 and since 2019 he has worked at the VCDNP.

Dr. Sokov has published widely, including two dozen books and monographs and more than 200 articles. He is regularly invited to speak at various conferences and other public events and has served as a consultant to many international organisations, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, as well as US government agencies, i.e. the Departments of State, Defense, and Energy, and various committees of the US Congress.

He taught full-semester at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and short courses at Tomsk State University (Russia) and Odessa National University (Ukraine).

Education

Dr. Sokov was a graduate student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor between 1992 and 1996, and was awarded a PhD in Political Science in 1996.