John Brobst

Education

• Ph.D. in History, University of Texas at Austin
• M.A. in History, University of Texas at Austin
• B.A. in History and Geography, University of Kansas

Research

• British Empire from 1783
• Geopolitics and Grand Strategy
• Modern Naval History

Publications

• “Mackinder’s Game, Mahan’s Rules: Classical Geopolitics and the U. S. Navy in the Cold War,” in War and Geopolitics edited by Jeremy Black (Società Italiana di Storia Militare, 2025), pp. 459-483.
• “‘No Scope for Arms Control’: Strategy, Geography, and Naval Limitations in the Indian Ocean in the 1970s,” in Strategy and the Sea: Essays in Honour of John B. Hattendorf, edited by N. A. M. Rodger, J. Ross Dancy, Benjamin Darnell, and Evan Wilson (Boydell and Brewer, 2016), pp. 179-189.
• “Great Game Redux: The United States, Europe, and Gulf Security in the Late Cold War,” in European-American Relations in the Middle East: From Suez to Iraq edited by Daniel Möckli and Victor Mauer (Routledge, 2011), pp. 275-296.
• “‘By the Finger and the Thumb’: India’s Partition and the Great Game in Postwar Asia,” Orbis, vol. 52, n. 3, 2008, pp. 509-522.
• The Future of the Great Game: Sir Olaf Caroe, India’s Independence, and the Defense of Asia (University of Akron Press, 2005).
• “‘Icarian Geography’: Air Power, Closed Space, and British Decolonisation,” Geopolitics, vol. 9, n. 2, 2004, pp. 426-439.
• “Sir Frederic Goldsmid and the Containment of Persia, 1863-1873,” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 33, n. 2, 1997, pp. 197-215.
• Numerous shorter articles, essays, and reviews, including contributions to Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Defense and Security Analysis, H-Diplo, and The Journal of Military History, among other journals and edited compilations.
• Current book project examines great power competition and maritime strategy in the Indian Ocean during the Cold War.

Courses

• HIST 1220: Western Civilization: Modernity from 1500
• HIST 2790: Maritime Empires in World History
• HIST 3330: Oil, the Persian Gulf, and World Power
• HIST 3790: History of Sea Power since 1890
• HIST 3792: Secret Intelligence: Great Game to Five Eyes
• HIST 3865: Churchill’s Britain, 1870-1970
• HIST 3866: History and Strategy of Afghan Wars
• HIST 3867: The Rise of the British Empire
• HIST 3868: The Decline and Fall of the British Empire