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Robert D. Blackwill is the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a member of Harvard Kennedy School’s Applied History Project. His current work focuses on U.S. foreign policy writ large as well as on China, Russia, the Middle East, South Asia, and geoeconomics. The Ambassador’s new book coauthored with Richard Fontaine, Lost Decade: The US Pivot to Asia, will be published by Oxford University Press in early 2024.
As deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for strategic planning under President George W. Bush, Blackwill was responsible for government-wide policy planning to help develop and coordinate the mid- and long-term direction of U.S. foreign policy. He also served as presidential envoy to Iraq. Blackwill went to the National Security Council (NSC) after serving as the U.S. ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003. He is the recipient of the 2007 Bridge-Builder Award for his role in transforming U.S.-India relations. In 2016 he became the first U.S. Ambassador to India since John Kenneth Galbraith to receive the Padma Bhushan Award from the government of India for distinguished service of a high order.
Prior to reentering government in 2001, Blackwill was the Belfer lecturer in international security at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. During his fourteen years as a Harvard faculty member, he was associate dean of the Kennedy School, where he taught foreign and defense policy and public policy analysis. He 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. From 1989 to 1990, he was special assistant to President George H.W. Bush for European and Soviet affairs, during which he was awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany for his contribution to German unification. Earlier in his career, he was the U.S. 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.
Blackwill’s best-selling book, Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World (MIT Press, February 2013), coauthored with Graham Allison of the Harvard Kennedy School, has sold over 300,000 copies. His most recent book, War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft (Harvard University Press, April 2016), coauthored with Jennifer M. Harris, was named one of the best foreign policy books of 2016 by Foreign Affairs. His latest Council Special Reports are Implementing Grand Strategy Toward China: Twenty-Two U.S. Policy Prescriptions (January 2020), The End of World Order and American Foreign Policy (May 2020), coauthored with Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution, and The United States, China, and Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War (February 2021), coauthored with Dr. Philip Zelikow of the University of Virginia. They also wrote a March 1, 2021 War on the Rocks article on Taiwan military contingencies titled “Can the United States Prevent a War Over Taiwan?,” which addresses reactions to the February 2021 CFR Special Report.
Blackwill is a member of CFR, the Aspen Strategy Group, the Trilateral Commission, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Featured
Current Projects
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India has emerged as a major global power capable of shaping events beyond South Asia. Experts from CFR and elsewhere examined the future of India and how the country’s economic trends, domestic politics, and foreign relations have affected its rise and viability as a critical international actor. Click here to download the full agenda for the symposium. This event is made possible by the generous support of the Hauser Foundation. Members may invite a guest to this symposium. ZOOM LOG-IN INFORMATION: Session One: “India’s Economic Rise—Continued Ascent or Turbulence Ahead?” 12:30 p.m.–1:30 p.m. (EST) Zoom Meeting ID: 822 3976 8558 Zoom Password: 2023hauser Numerical Passcode (for dial-in ONLY): 3109191337 Session Two: “India’s Democracy—Resilient or Endangered?” 1:45 p.m.–2:45 p.m. (EST) Zoom Meeting ID: 872 9900 5680 Zoom Password: 2023hauser Numerical Passcode (for dial-in ONLY): 6358635415 Session Three: “Indian Foreign Policy in an Era of Geopolitical Competition” 3:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. (EST) Zoom Meeting ID: 854 0627 4482 Zoom Password: 2023hauser Numerical Passcode (for dial-in ONLY): 9603236685
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In the Council Special Report The United States, China, and Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War, authors Ambassador Robert Blackwill and Philip Zelikow warn that “Taiwan is becoming the most dangerous flashpoint in the world for a possible war that involves the United States, China, and probably other major powers.” The authors urge the Biden administration to consider a strategy that includes affirming that it will not change Taiwan's status, working with allies to challenge Chinese military moves against Taiwan, and planning for the disruption and mobilization that could follow a wider war.
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Panelists discuss current U.S. strategy toward China and offer their security, economic, and foreign policy recommendations to address increasing tensions in the relationship.
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Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill’s Council Special Report Trump’s Foreign Policies Are Better Than They Seem takes a step back from the feverish media temperature associated with coverage of Donald J. Trump’s first two years in office and offers a detailed analytical look at the president’s foreign policies—from his heavily scrutinized approaches to NATO and European security and rising Chinese power to his stances on North Korea, Afghanistan, and Venezuela. Blackwill grades Trump not on whether the president gets what he wants, but on whether his policies successfully promote U.S. national interests.
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In the Council Special Report Containing Russia: How to Respond to Moscow’s Intervention in U.S. Democracy and Growing Geopolitical Challenge, Robert D. Blackwill and Philip H. Gordon argue that the U.S. response to Russia’s continued attacks on U.S. democracy and attempts to undermine U.S. power worldwide has been insufficient to deter future attacks.
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Experts discuss potential reforms to the National Security Council.
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Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris discuss War by Other Means.
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Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris discuss War by Other Means, their new book on why the United States must strategically integrate economic and financial instruments into its foreign policy or risk losing ground as a world power.
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Experts discuss U.S.-India relations, and the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
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CFR Senior Fellow Robert D. Blackwill, Vitaly Churkin, permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, and Frank Elbe, former director of German Foreign Minister Hans-Deitrich Genscher's cabinet, join Mary Elise Sarotte of Harvard University to discuss the factors and steps that led to the end of the Cold War.
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CFR Fellows Alyssa Ayres, Jagdish N. Bhagwati, and Robert D. Blackwill join Charles Kaye of Warburg Pincus to discuss the results of the recent Indian election.
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Increased petroleum production in the United States, fueled largely by recent technological advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, has had a profound effect on the U.S. economy and global energy markets. CFR's Robert D. Blackwill sits down with Admiral Dennis C. Blair and former BP CEO John Browne to outline both the economic and geopolitcal implications of the current U.S. energy boom.
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Please join us for a panel discussion to celebrate the release of Iran: The Nuclear Challenge, a forthcoming Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) ebook. The essays in this volume, all authored by fellows in CFR's David Rockefeller Studies Program and edited by Robert Blackwill, aim to inform readers how, not what, to think about Iran's nuclear activities.
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This special event is organized in conjunction with the U.S.-India Joint Study Group on Shared National Interests, a collaboration between CFR and Aspen Institute India. The group is composed of former government officials and scholars from each country. At this meeting, they will discuss the group’s prescriptive report on U.S.-India relations, which will be available on CFR.org on September 15.