Richard Holbrooke is vice chairman of Perseus, a leading private equity firm. He most recently served as the United States ambassador to the United Nations, where he was also a member of President Clinton’s cabinet (1999-2001). As assistant secretary of state for Europe (1994-1996), he was the chief architect of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement that ended the war in Bosnia. He later served as President Clinton’s special envoy to Bosnia and Kosovo and special envoy to Cyprus on a pro-bono basis while a private citizen. From 1993-1994, he was the US ambassador to Germany.
During the Carter administration (1977-1981), he served as the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and was in charge of US relations with China at the time Sino-American relations were normalized in December 1978.
After joining the foreign service in 1962, he served in Vietnam (1963-66), including a tour of duty in the Mekong Delta for AID. He worked on Vietnam at the Johnson White House (1966-68), wrote one volume of the Pentagon Papers, and was a member of the American delegation to the Vietnam Peace Talks in Paris (1968-69).
He was Peace Corps director in Morocco (1970-72), managing editor of Foreign Policy (1972-77), and held senior positions at two leading Wall Street firms, Credit Suisse First Boston (vice chairman) and Lehman Brothers (managing director). He has written numerous articles and two best-selling books: To End a War, a memoir of the Dayton negotiations, and co-author of Counsel to the President, Clark Clifford’s memoir. He writes a monthly column for the Washington Post.
He has received over twenty honorary degrees and numerous awards, including several Nobel Peace Prize nominations. He is the founding chairman of the American Academy in Berlin, a center for U.S.-German cultural exchange; president and CEO of the Global Business Coalition, the business alliance against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and chairman of the Asia Society. He is on the Board of American International Group. Board memberships with non-governmental organizations include the American Museum of Natural History, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Africa-America Institute, the Citizens Committee for New York City, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Refugees International. He is on the US advisory board for UN High Commissioner for Refugees, is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the US board of governors of Interpeace.
At Brown, he was a history major, has served as a member of the Watson Institute’s Board of Overseers and received the 1996 Roger Williams Award, the Brown Alumni Association’s highest honor. He also holds an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Brown, awarded in 1997.
Location: Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 101.
The lecture will be preceded by a book signing in the Salomon Center lobby at 3:45pm. Copies of "To End a War" will be available for purchase.
Event Summary
Holbrooke Urges Student Engagement in a World in Crisis
When the next president takes office, he or she will face an array of foreign policy problems unlike anything faced by an incoming US chief executive in the history of the republic, Richard C. Holbrooke ’62, a Brown professor at large based at the Watson Institute, told a crowd gathered Monday evening at the Salomon Center for Teaching.
“Iraq is going to trump Vietnam as the biggest mistake in American foreign policy,” said Holbrooke, who served as US ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton and is the foreign affairs advisor to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Holbrooke, the chief architect of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement that ended the war in Bosnia, was speaking on “The World Crisis” as part of the Watson Institute’s Directors Lectures Series on Contemporary International Affairs. During his talk, Holbrooke touched on a number of global problems – Iraq, Iran, Burma, Turkey, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic – that the next administration will have to tackle. He also urged the students in the crowd to become more involved in international affairs and stressed the importance of public service.
While Holbrooke is currently vice chairman of Perseus, a leading private equity firm, he entered the Foreign Service in 1962 after his graduation from Brown. He served in Vietnam for four years before working on the war in the Johnson White House. Holbrooke repeatedly stated the need for young people to “get involved” in the world around them.
“You’ve got to get engaged and you mustn’t despair,” he said. “It’s your opportunity to participate and I urge you to do so.”
Holbrooke said he sees cause for concern in the current state of world affairs. There is a pair of ongoing wars, a looming showdown with Iran over its nuclear program, the rise of China, the growing importance of India, the changing policies of Vladimir Putin in Russia, deteriorating relations with Turkey, war and genocide in Africa, and the devastation of HIV/AIDS in countries throughout the world. But despite all the problems and the shortcomings of the Bush administration, he remained optimistic.
The US can meet these challenges and will, he said, because it has the ability – it just doesn’t have the right leadership. “I do not despair for the country,” Holbrooke said. “I believe the people are much better than the government.”
The Iraq War is going very badly, Holbrooke said, pointing out that he sees four possible outcomes, none of which is ideal. The first possibility is a Shia state and an unending civil war. The second, three independent states divided along sectarian lines, would lead to a series of regional wars. He said the problems created by this option would be insoluble. A third choice, the one Holbrooke favors, would partition Iraq into Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish semi-autonomous states under a weak central government. This plan of “soft federalism” is the only possible solution that would keep the current international borders intact, although he said it might be too late for it to work. The final outcome is the complete disintegration of the country, much like Somalia is today.
Iraq will become Exhibit A of mistaken American intervention, Holbrooke said. The US should never have invaded Iraq in 2003 and should not now attack Iran, he said. The war that should be fought is against HIV/AIDS, according to Holbrooke, who is the president of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. The disease, along with global warming, has been ignored in the past and continues to be ignored today, he said.
“It is a war, and it is a war for the survival of the countries that are fighting it,” he said of the HIV/AIDS scourge in developing nations.
Throughout his talk Holbrooke remained positive, but when an audience member raised the issue of Burma he said he was “bleakly pessimistic” about the options the US has to influence events there. It is a matter that is best dealt with by India and China, but neither country has shown much interest in intervening to stop the violent suppression of anti-government protestors.
Harkening back to his days in the White House during the Vietnam War, Holbrooke ended his talk saying, “You learn more from disasters than from successes.”
In addition to his years of public service, Holbrooke was the managing editor of Foreign Policy from 1972 to 1977 and has held senior positions at two leading Wall Street firms. He has written two best selling books: To End a War (Modern Library, 1999), about the Dayton negotiations, and Counsel to the President (Random House, 1991), the co-authored memoir of Clark Clifford.
At Brown, Holbrooke has served as a member of the Watson Institute’s board of overseers and received the 1996 Roger Williams Award, the Brown Alumni Association’s highest honor. He also received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Brown in 1997.
By Watson Institute Student Rapporteur Scott Spitler
An Open Source at the Watson Institute interview with Holbrooke is available here.
Read Holbrooke's recent Washington Post column on HIV/AIDS here.
Find more information about To End a War here.