American Foreign Policy in an Era of Turbulence and Trump

Date & Time Feb 26 2018 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Speaker(s)
mb. William J. Burns – President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Audience Open to the Public

A career ambassador with 33 years in diplomacy, including postings as ambassador to Russia and to Jordan, Amb. (ret.) William J. Burns will deliver a public lecture titled, "American Foreign Policy in an Era of Turbulence and Trump," at Princeton University on Monday, Feb. 26, at 4:30 p.m. in Robertson Hall’s Arthur Lewis Auditorium.

Amb. Burns currently serves as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the oldest international affairs think tank in the U.S. He served as deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2014.

Prior to his tenure as deputy secretary, Burns served from 2008 to 2011 as undersecretary for political affairs. He was ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from 2001 to 2005, and ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001. His other posts in the foreign service include: executive secretary of the State Department and special assistant to former secretaries of state Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, minister-counselor for political affairs at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, acting director and principal deputy director of the State Department’s policy planning staff, and special assistant to the president and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council.

Burns has been the recipient of three Presidential Distinguished Service Awards and a number of State Department awards, including three Secretary’s Distinguished Service Awards, two Distinguished Honor Awards, the 2006 Charles E. Cobb, Jr. Ambassadorial Award for Initiative and Success in Trade Development, the 2005 Robert C. Frasure Memorial Award for Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking, and the James Clement Dunn Award for exemplary performance at the mid-career level. He also has received the highest civilian honors from the Department of Defense and the U.S. intelligence community. In 2013, Foreign Policy named him “Diplomat of the Year.”

Burns is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is author of “Economic Aid and American Policy Toward Egypt, 1955-1981” (State University of New York Press, 1985). In 1994, he was named to Time magazine’s list of the “50 Most Promising American Leaders Under Age 40” and to its list of “100 Young Global Leaders.”

Burns is visiting the School as its 2018 Joseph S. Nye Jr. ’58 International Affairs Lecturer.