ASU to Host Former Ambassador

Hunter will present “The Middle East: Reinforcing Earthquakes” on Feb. 17 at 2:30 p.m.  He will then speak on “Mare Nostrum: Europe’s Mediterranean Challenge” at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18.  Both presentations will be in the University Center’s C.J. Davidson Conference Center and are open free to the public.  Hunter will also speak to ASU classes both days.

U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from 1993-98, Hunter also represented the U.S. to the Western European Union.  Among his many accomplishments, he was the principal architect of the “New NATO” and led the NATO Council in obtaining the air-strike decisions that ended the Bosnia conflict.  He was twice awarded the Pentagon’s highest civilian decoration, the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, and has been decorated by the governments of Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Belgium and France.  He has since served as senior advisor at the RAND Corporation and as director of the Center for Transatlantic Security Studies at the National Defense University.  He recently joined the Center for Transatlantic Relations as a senior fellow.

Prior to his appointment to NATO, Hunter was vice president for international politics/regional studies, director of European studies and senior fellow in Middle East studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.  He also served on President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council staff, where he participated in Middle East peace talks, and as foreign policy advisor to Sen. Edward Kennedy, and foreign and domestic policy advisor to Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Author of more than 800 publications to date, Hunter appears regularly on U.S. and international media, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR and the BBC.  He currently serves on the U.S. State Department’s International Security Advisory Board, the Senior Advisory Group to the U.S. European Command, the Academic Advisory Board of the NATO Defense College, the Executive Committee of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the boards of the Atlantic Council and European Institute.

A former Fulbright Scholar, Hunter earned his doctorate from the London School of Economics (LSE).  He has taught at LSE, Johns Hopkins University, Washington College and George Washington University.

The E. James Holland-Roy A. Harrell Jr. Foreign Affairs Speakers Program is dedicated to providing ASU students and the community with a broader worldview and exposing students to potential career opportunities in the Foreign Service.  Participating ambassadors deliver a general presentation on self-selected topics to ASU and the community and meet with students in the classroom to share their diplomatic experiences.

The program is sponsored by the ASU College of Arts and Sciences, Center for Security Studies, University Center Program Council and the academic departments of Communication and Mass Media, Political Science and Philosophy, History, and English and Modern Languages.

For more information, call the College of Arts and Sciences at 325-942-2162.