Thaindian News

Washington, Aug 31 (IANS) Former US Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, is returning to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a leading US think tank to focus on American foreign policy toward India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
Naming Blackwill, a deputy national security advisor for strategic planning under President George W. Bush, as Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy, CFR President Richard N. Haass said: “We are thrilled to have Bob back at the Council on Foreign Relations.”

“He is one of the most creative minds in the foreign policy debate. What is more, he combines this originality with a practicality borne of decades in government service.”

Blackwill, the recipient of the 2007 Bridge-Builder Award for his role in transforming US-India relations, went to the National Security Council (NSC) under Bush after serving as the US ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003.

At the NSC, he was responsible for government-wide policy planning to help develop and coordinate the mid- and long-term direction of American foreign policy. He also served as presidential envoy to Iraq, and was the administration’s coordinator for US policies regarding Afghanistan and Iran.

Blackwill was Counsellor to CFR in 2005. He has also been a Council member for 25 years. Most recently, Blackwill was senior fellow at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, from 2008 to 2010, after serving from 2004 to 2008 as President of BGR International, a Washington consulting firm.

Prior to reentering government in 2001, Blackwill was the Belfer Lecturer in International Security at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Earlier in his career, he was the US ambassador to conventional arms negotiations with the Warsaw Pact; director for European affairs at the NSC; principal deputy assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs; and principal deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs.

The author and editor of many articles and books on transatlantic relations, Russia and the West, the Greater Middle East, and Asian security, he is a trustee and on the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Blackwill is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and The Aspen Strategy Group; and on the boards of the Nixon Center and Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.