The Balkans, Oral History, and Contemporary Research

My guest today is Dr. Mary Elizabeth Walters, and she is an Assistant Professor of Military and Security Studies in the Department of Airpower at the Air Command and Staff College. Walters received both her MA and PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She teaches Airpower I, Airpower II, War Theory, and electives on strategy and Star Wars, the Balkans, and peacekeeping. Her book project, Hospitality is the Law of the Mountains: The 1999 Kosovo War, argues that Albanians – motivated by the Albanian concept of hospitality – took strangers into their homes and communities and changed the course of the refugee crisis. Their actions bought time for the U.S. military to mobilize, rebuild Albania’s shattered infrastructure, and bring in massive amounts of aid. Additionally, she recently began research on a second project on Operation Allies Rescue/Operation Allies Welcome, which is the U.S. military support for the evacuation and resettlement of Afghans spanning 2021-2022. Before joining ACSC, Walters was an assistant professor in the History Department at Kansas State University where she taught graduate and undergraduate courses on American military history, the history of strategy, and the Vietnam War(s).

*The views and opinions presented by Dr. Walters are solely her own and do not necessarily reflect the policies or positions of Air University, the U.S. Air Force, or the U.S. Government.