Kurt Campbell became the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in June 2009. Previously, he was the CEO and Co-Founder of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and concurrently served as the director of the Aspen Strategy Group and chairman of the Editorial Board of the Washington Quarterly. He was the founder of StratAsia, a strategic advisory firm, and was the senior vice president, director of the International Security Program, and Henry A. Kissinger Chair in National Security Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He was also associate professor of public policy and international relations at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and assistant director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.
Dr. Campbell has served in several capacities in government, including as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia and the Pacific, a director on the National Security Council Staff, deputy special counselor to the president for NAFTA in the White House, and White House fellow at the Department of the Treasury. For his service, he received the Department of Defense Medals for Distinguished Public Service and for Outstanding Public Service. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and in the Chief of Naval Operations Special Intelligence Unit.
He is the co-author with Jim Steinberg of
Difficult Transitions: Why Presidents Fail in Foreign Policy at the Outset of Power, with Michele Flournoy of
To Prevail: An American Strategy for the Campaign against Terrorism, with Michael O’Hanlon of
Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security, and he co-authored with Nirav Patel
The Power of Balance: America in iAsia. He is the editor of
Climatic Cataclysm: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Climate Change, and
The Nuclear Tipping Point: Why States Reconsider Their Nuclear Choices with Robert Einhorn and Mitchell Reiss.
He received his B.A. from the University of California, San Diego, a Certificate in music and political philosophy from the University of Erevan in Soviet Armenia, and his Doctorate in International Relations from Brasenose College at Oxford University where he was a Distinguished Marshall Scholar.
