Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

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The New Era of Diplomacy

Mon, April 17, 2017
Dinner Program
Cameron Phelps Munter

The new administration approaches foreign policy and diplomacy in unexpected ways. Yet, the rest of the world continues to face unprecedented challenges regardless of the style it sees in Washington, D.C. Ambassador Cameron Munter will reflect on how we are to promote understanding of global challenges in such a situation.

Cameron Munter is President and CEO of the EastWest Institute (EWI) in New York. The EastWest Institute works to reduce international conflict, addressing seemingly intractable problems that threaten world security and stability. 

Ambassador Munter served as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer for nearly three decades, having served in some of the most conflict-ridden areas of the globe. He was Ambassador to Pakistan (2010-2012) guiding U.S.-Pakistani relations through a period of crisis, including the operation against Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad. He was Ambassador to Serbia (2007-2009), where he negotiated Serbia domestic consensus for European integration while managing the Kosovo independence crisis. He served twice in Iraq, leading the first Provincial Reconstruction Team in Mosul in 2006 and then handling political-military affairs in Baghdad in 2009-2010. Previous overseas postings included Deputy Chief of Mission in Poland (2002-2005) and in the Czech Republic (2005-2007), as well as numerous other assignments at the State Department and at Embassies overseas. 

In Washington, he was Director for Central Europe at the National Security Council (1999-2001), Executive Assistant to the Counselor of the Department of State (1998-1999), Director of the Northern European Initiative (1998), and Chief of Staff in the NATO Enlargement Ratification Office (1997-1998).

After his retirement from the Foreign Service, Munter was professor of international relations at Pomona College from 2013 to 2015, and served as a consultant to the equity funds KKR and Mid Europa Partners. He was a senior advisor to the Albright Stonebridge Group; and advised the Gates Foundation project on polio eradication. He came to Pomona from Columbia University Law School in New York, where he was visiting professor during the fall term of 2012. He is a non-resident fellow of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.

Munter graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University in 1976 and earned a doctoral degree in modern European history from the Johns Hopkins University in 1983. He was a Rusk Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy in 1991. He taught European history at UCLA and directed European studies at the Twentieth Century Fund (now the Century Foundation) in New York before joining the Foreign Service.

Ambassador Munter's Athenaeum presentation is the 2017 Lectureship in Diplomacy and International Security in Honor of George F. Kennan.

View Video: YouTube with Cameron Munter

Food for Thought: Podcast with Cameron Munter

Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

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