Robert D. Blackwill

Robert Dean Blackwill is a retired American diplomat, author, senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, and lobbyist. Blackwill served as the United States Ambassador to India under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003 and as United States National Security Council Deputy for Iraq from 2003 to 2004, where he was a liaison between Paul Bremer and Condoleezza Rice.

Early life, education, and Peace Corps service

Blackwill was born on August 8, 1939, in Kellogg, Idaho and grew up in Kansas. In June 2001, at a Senate confirmation hearings to become ambassador to India, he said, "From my boyhood on the Great Plains, I brought back east more than 30 years ago the values of Kansas and its people: honesty, candor, compassion, hard work, a dogged stamina in the face of challenge and adversity, a sense of humor, a recognition of one's own limitations, and a deep and abiding love of country." He earned a B.A. from Wichita State University.
Blackwill served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi from 1964 to 1966. While in the Peace Corps, he served with writer Paul Theroux, who Blackwill later described as "the glorious American writer who was my friend in the Peace Corps in Africa more than thirty years ago". In an interview with Rediff News on June 27, 2006, Blackwill was asked if he was still in contact with Theroux, and he replied, "Not recently. But I just finished reading his new novel, Blinding Light. It is terrific."

Diplomatic career

1960s

In 1967, Blackwill was appointed as a Foreign Service Officer. He served as a training officer in the Bureau of Personnel of the US State Department from 1968 to 1969 and as an associate watch officer in the State Department's Operations Center from 1969 to 1970.

1970s

Blackwill took Swahili language training in 1970 at the Foreign Service Institute. He served as a political officer in Nairobi, Kenya from 1970 to 1972 and as a staff officer in the Executive Secretariat of the State Department from 1972 to 1973. In 1974, Blackwill was a special assistant to State Department counselor Helmut Sonnenfeldt. While he was a special assistant, Blackwill worked closely with Paul Bremer, who was then a chief aide to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Blackwill and Bremer forged a close relationship through mediating policy differences between their bosses. The two would come to work together again thirty years later in August 2003, when Bremer was named by President George W. Bush to lead the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and Blackwill was named to the National Security Council staff to coordinate between Washington, D.C., and Baghdad. From 1975 to 1978, Blackwill served as a political-military officer in London, England. He served as political counselor in Tel Aviv, Israel from 1978 to 1979. Blackwill became the Director of Western European Affairs on the National Security Council staff at the White House in 1979.

1980s

Blackwill served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs in the State Department in 1981. Blackwill served as principal deputy assistant secretary for European Affairs from 1982 to 1983. After his return from a two-year sabbatical at Harvard University, President Ronald Reagan nominated him to Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor on March 29, 1985, and designated him to be the chief negotiator of the US with the Warsaw Pact for the Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions talks. Blackwill served in this position with the rank of Ambassador. On March 13, 1989, President George H. W. Bush appointed Blackwill as special assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and as senior director for European and Soviet Affairs.

Academic career

From 1983 to 1985, Blackwill took a sabbatical from the State Department and served as associate dean and faculty member at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
After two years as representative to the Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions Negotiations, Blackwill rejoined the Harvard faculty in 1987. There, he served the Kennedy School as associate dean and the Belfer Lecturer in International Security for fourteen years until 2001. During his tenure, Blackwill taught foreign and defense policy and public policy analysis. He was also faculty chair for executive training programs for business and government leaders from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Palestinian Authority, and Kazakhstan, as well as military General Officers from Russia and the People's Republic of China.

Publications

In 2024, Blackwill released "Lost Decade: The U.S. Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power" with co-author Richard Fontaine.

Articles

Policy Prescriptions for U.S.-China Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, January 9, 2023
Ukraine War Should Slow But Not Stop the U.S. Pivot to Asia, Bloomberg Opinion, March 8, 2022

While at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Blackwill contributed to the following books and articles:

Conventional Arms Control and East-West Security
A Primer for the Nuclear Age
New Nuclear Nations
Damage Limitation or Crisis? Russia and the Outside World
"Engaging Russia: Arms Control and the U.S.-Russian Relationship", Report of an Independent Task Force
Allies Divided: Transatlantic Policies for the Greater Middle East
"The Future of Transatlantic Relations", Report of an Independent Task Force
America's Asian Alliances
Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World.
US Ambassador to India

Advisor to Bush Campaign

Blackwill, a Republican, was one of a group of foreign policy experts who advised Bush during his Presidential campaign in 2000. After the election Blackwill was rewarded with the ambassadorship to India. Rice had previously worked for Blackwill during the first Bush administration when they dealt with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet empire. He had never been to India before his appointment as ambassador, but he sought the assignment because of President Bush's designation of India as a "rising great power of the 21st century".

Stronger ties with India

Blackwill was appointed US ambassador to India in June 2001. He was committed to taking India seriously as an American ally as a counterweight to China's growing power. Blackwill promoted perhaps the closest ties between India and the United States since India's independence in 1947. "The Bush administration perceives India as a strategic opportunity for the United States, not as an irritating recalcitrant", Blackwill said. Blackwill said that before he arrived, India was considered "a nuclear renegade whose policies threatened the entire nonproliferation regime". To promote closer ties, the United States lifted economic penalties applied against India after its 1998 nuclear tests. American military forces also conducted six major joint training exercises with India while Blackwill was the ambassador.

Protests by Muslim fundamentalists

Muslims protestors belonging to Islamic fundamentalist organizations, Majlis Bachao Tehreek and Tahaffuz-e-Shayar-Islami attacked Blackwill's convoy when it was proceeding towards Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad. The mob was protesting alleged American injustices in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. Hyderabad Police cleared the mob and allowed the convoy to proceed safely.

Relations with Pakistan

One of Blackwill's major concerns while ambassador was terrorism in India and relations between India and Pakistan. After a series of terrorist attacks that India blamed on Pakistan, the two countries nearly went to war over Kashmir in June 2002. After Blackwill ordered the evacuation of embassy staff members, an event that was seen as a pressure tactic and partly credited for drawing India back from the war, Blackwill encouraged India to resume dialogue with Pakistan. In a statement on his departure as ambassador, Blackwill said that the fight against international terrorism would not be won until terrorism against India ended. "There can be no other legitimate stance by the United States, no American compromise whatever on this elemental geopolitical and moral truth." Others thought that Blackwill damaged US relations with Pakistan. Pakistani analyst Ershad Mahmud of the Institute of Policy Studies called Blackwill "Delhi's front man rather than U.S. ambassador to India," and said that Blackwill "even encouraged India to take hostile stance against Pakistan".

Appreciation of Indian civilization

Blackwill had a very high-profile tenure as ambassador to India and displayed a strong appreciation for Indian civilization. Upon his departure as ambassador, Blackwill wrote in an article for the Financial Times called "What India Means To Me" writing:

As has been said, the world is divided into two parts —those who have seen the Taj Mahal, and those who have not. I am proud to be in the first, still too exclusive group. The Shatabdi Express transported me there and back in great comfort. A wonderful train. All of Rajasthan entrances me. The noble Rajput legacy. Jaipur. Udaipur. Jodhpur. And perhaps my favourite, the medieval walled city of Jaisalmer, land of the Bhatti princes, born of the moon. Parapets into the sky. On some nights, there must be stars nowhere else above the planet because they all seem to be over Jaisalmer. I am surprised some city in northern Europe has not sued Jaisalmer for stealing all the stars. Be sure and take your sunglasses along when you go there —to deal with the starry nights. Standing in Jaisalmer, close your eyes for a moment and see the camel caravans coming through this desert town a thousand years ago, which I now realise by India's civilizational standards is only yesterday —a fellow on the street might have said to me, 'yes, they came through Jaisalmer, just a little while ago.'

Upon returning to the United States, the only item on Blackwill's desk at the National Security Council was a tiny figurine of Ganesh, the Hindu elephant-headed god of wisdom and success while a huge map of "Mother India" adorned the walls of his office.
Historian Ramachandra Guha quoted him saying, "India is a pluralist society that creates magic with democracy, rule of law and individual freedom, community relations and diversity. What a place to be an intellectual!. I wouldn't mind being born ten times to rediscover India."