Ambassadors unplugged: A hard look at the state of the world

Eric Edelman retired as a career minister from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2009 after having served in senior positions at the Departments of State and Defense as well as the White House. As the undersecretary of defense for policy (2005–2009), he oversaw strategy development as the Defense Department’s senior policy official with global responsibility for bilateral defense relations, war plans, special operations forces, homeland defense, missile defense, nuclear weapons and arms control policies, counter-proliferation, counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, arms sales, and defense trade controls. Edelman served as U.S. ambassador to the Republics of Finland and Turkey in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and was principal deputy assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney for national security affairs.

With over thirty years of experience in foreign policy, Nancy Soderberg has served in the United States Senate, in the White House, and at the United Nations. She has achieved international recognition for her efforts to promote peace in Northern Ireland and has advised the president on policies toward China, Vietnam, Japan, Russia, Angola, the Balkans, and Haiti. In 1997, President Clinton appointed her to serve as alternate representative to the United Nations with the rank of Ambassador. From 1993–97, she served as the third ranking official of the National Security Council as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Currently Ambassador Soderberg is president and CEO of Soderberg Global Solutions and a distinguished visiting scholar and director of the Public Service Leadership Program at the University of North Florida.

John Owen is a Miller Center faculty senior fellow and the chair of the UVA Department of Politics. He is the author of Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American Politics and International Security and The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States, and Regime Change 1510-2010. A recipient of fellowships from Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton Universities, Owen is a member of the editorial board of International Security and a faculty fellow at the UVA Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.