Senior Fellow

RAND Corporation

 

Ambassador Robert Blackwill joined the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, as a senior fellow in July 2008.  From 2004 to 2008, Blackwill served as president of Barbour Griffith & Rogers International, a Washington consulting and government affairs firm. 

 

Before coming to Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Blackwill was deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for strategic planning under President George W. Bush.  In this position, Blackwill 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 U.S. policies regarding Afghanistan and Iran.

 

Blackwill went to the National Security Council after serving as the U.S. Ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003.

 

Blackwill has also been the Belfer lecturer in international security at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. During his 14 years as a Harvard faculty member, he was associate dean of the Kennedy School, taught foreign and defense policy and public policy analysis, and was faculty chair for executive training programs for business and government leaders from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Palestinian Authority, Israel and Kazakhstan, as well as military general officers from Russia and the People's Republic of China.

 

Earlier in his career, Blackwill was the U.S. Ambassador to conventional arms negotiations with the Warsaw Pact, 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 books and articles on Transatlantic relations, Russia and the West, the Greater Middle East and Asian security, Blackwill is a trustee and on the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a member of the Aspen Strategy Group, a member of the Trilateral Commission, and on the boards of the Nixon Center and Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany for his contribution to German unification during his time as special assistant to President George H.W. Bush for European and Soviet Affairs. Additionally, Blackwill is the recipient of the 2007 Bridge-Builder Award for his role in transforming U.S.-India relations. Each year the US-India Business Council confers “The Robert Dean Blackwill Award” to an individual who has made a major contribution to business interactions between the United States and India.