Robert D. Blackwill is a non-resident Senior Fellow and member of the International Council at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. His work focuses on American foreign policy writ large as well as China, Russia, the Middle East, South Asia, and geo-economics.
Most recently, Ambassador Blackwill was senior fellow at the RAND Corporation California, from 2008 to 2010, after serving from 2004 to 2008 as president of BGR International, a Washington consulting firm. He was deputy assistant to the President and deputy national security advisor for strategic planning under President George W. Bush. He also served as presidential envoy to Iraq, and was the administration's coordinator for U.S. policies regarding Afghanistan and Iran. Before joining the National Security Council, he served 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, and the 2016 Padma Bhushan Award from the government of India for distinguished service of a high order.
From 1989 to 1990, Ambassador Blackwill was special assistant to President George H.W. Bush for European and Soviet affairs, where he was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany for his contribution to German unification. Prior to reentering government in 2001, he spent fourteen years as faculty and associate dean at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Ambassador Blackwill is author and editor of many articles and books on transatlantic relations, Russia and the West, the Greater Middle East, and Asian security. He edited the CFR book Iran: The Nuclear Challenge (June 2012). His latest report, co-authored with Philip Gordon, is titled Repairing the U.S.-Israel Relationship (November 2016). He also co-authored War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft (Harvard University Press 2016) with Jennifer Harris, Xi Jinping on the Global Stage: Chinese Foreign Policy Under a Powerful but Exposed Leader (February 2016) with Kurt Campbell, Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China (April 2015) with Ashley Tellis, and Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World (MIT Press, February 2013) with Graham Allison.
