James Lindsay Returns to CFR as Director of Studies; Elliott Abrams, Evan Feigenbaum, Among New Scholars

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is pleased to announce a new director of studies and several new scholars.

James M. Lindsay, director of the Studies Program from 2003 to 2006 at CFR, will be returning on August 31. Gary Samore, the previous director, left the Council to serve as the White House coordinator for weapons of mass destruction and arms control in the Obama administration.

Lindsay comes to CFR from the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was the center’s inaugural director and the LBJ School of Public Affairs’ first Tom Slick Chair for International Affairs. He has served as deputy director and senior fellow in the foreign policy studies program at Brookings and spent more than ten years as a professor of political science at the University of Iowa. From 1996 to 1997, he was director for global issues and multilateral affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. He holds an AB in economics and political science from the University of Michigan and an MA, MPhil., and PhD from Yale University.

“We are excited to welcome Jim back to the Council. The depth of his knowledge and experience is instrumental for the continued success of the Studies Program, which he has already had such a large hand in building,” said CFR President Richard N. Haass.

Elliott Abrams joined CFR as senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies. An expert in U.S. policy in the Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian affairs, and democracy promotion, Abrams recently served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House. Prior to joining the White House staff, Abrams was president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, and a member and then chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Earlier in his career, Abrams worked as special counsel to Senator Henry M. Jackson (D-WA) and as special counsel and then chief of staff to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan (D-NY). During the Reagan administration, he served in the U.S. Department of State as assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, assistant secretary for human rights and humanitarian affairs, and assistant secretary for inter-American affairs. For his work, Abrams received the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award from Secretary George P. Shultz. Abrams is the author of three books, Undue Process, Security and Sacrifice, and Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America. He received a BA from Harvard College, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Bronwyn Bruton specializes in democracy and governance, has extensive experience in Africa and has joined CFR as an international affairs fellow. She conducted the first six months of her fellowship at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where she focused on “bottom-up” strategies to support stabilization and reconstruction in Somalia. She is also exploring potential U.S. policy responses to the adoption of the Civil Society Organizations law in Ethiopia, which criminalizes democracy, human rights, and conflict resolution programming by foreign entities. Previously, she spent three years at the National Endowment for Democracy, where she managed a $7 million portfolio of grants to local and international nongovernmental organizations in eastern and southern Africa. Bruton has also served as a program manager on the Africa team of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s office of transition initiatives, as a policy analyst on the international affairs and trade team of the Government Accountability Office, and as a program officer at the Center for International Private Enterprise. She was born in Swaziland and spent most of her childhood in Botswana. She holds an MPP, with honors, from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Evan A. Feigenbaum is a senior fellow for East, Central, and South Asia. From 2001 to 2009, Feigenbaum served at the U.S. Department of State as deputy assistant secretary of state for India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives, as well as South Asian regional economic and security affairs. He has also served as deputy assistant secretary of state for the former Soviet republics of Central Asia; as a member of the policy planning staff with principal responsibility for China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia; and as an adviser on China to Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick. Prior to government service, Feigenbaum worked at Harvard Kennedy School, taught at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and was a consultant on China to the RAND Corporation. His publications include China’s Techno-Warriors and Change in Taiwan and Potential Adversity in the Strait. Feigenbaum has received the State Department’s Superior Honor Award four times.

Paul Lettow joined CFR as an adjunct senior fellow and is an expert on strengthening the international nonproliferation regime. Lettow served as the senior director for strategic planning and institutional reform on the National Security Council (NSC) staff from 2007 to 2009, helping establish and coordinate the interagency National Security Policy Planning Committee and preparing presidential policy directives. He received an NSC award for outstanding performance. Lettow was senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs from 2006 to 2007. Previously, he served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Danny J. Boggs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and as a foreign policy analyst for the Long-Term Legal Strategy Project for Preserving Security and Democratic Freedoms in the War on Terrorism at Harvard University. Lettow is the author of Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. He received a JD from Harvard Law School, a DPhil in international relations from Oxford University (Christ Church), and an AB in history, summa cum laude, from Princeton University. He is also a CFR term member and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Peter Navario joined CFR as a fellow for global health. Navario is currently completing his PhD in health economics at the University of Cape Town’s school of economics. From 2005 to 2008, Navario co-managed the BroadReach Healthcare HIV treatment program in South Africa, leading the departments of monitoring, evaluation and reporting, and information management. He led the evaluation of the World Bank–funded Treatment Access Program in Burkina Faso, coordinated HIV program management training for the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia, and authored a position paper on HIV/AIDS resource mobilization and allocation for the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS. Navario holds a BA in psychology and French with honors from Lehigh University and an MA degree in global health from Yale University.

Scott A. Snyder is an adjunct senior fellow for Korea studies. Snyder is currently director of the newly established Center for Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation and senior associate with the Pacific Forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2000 to 2004, Snyder lived in Seoul, South Korea, as the Korea representative of the Asia Foundation. Previously, he served as program officer in the research and studies program of the United States Institute of Peace and as acting director of the Asia Society’s contemporary affairs program. Snyder’s latest book, China’s Rise and the Two Koreas, will be published this year. Snyder received a BA from Rice University and an MA from the regional studies–East Asia program at Harvard University.

For a complete list of CFR experts, visit www.cfr.org/thinktank/experts

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries.