James F. Dobbins

Ambassador James Dobbins is a Senior Fellow and Distinguished Chair in Diplomacy and Security at the RAND Corporation. He has held State Department and White House posts including Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Special Assistant to the President, Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State for the Balkans, and Ambassador to the European Community. He has served on numerous crisis management and diplomatic troubleshooting assignments, including Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia for the administrations of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. In 2013 he returned to the State Department to serve as the Obama administration's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is the lead author of RAND's three volume History of Nation Building and Choices for America.