What Can We Learn from Our Forever War in Ukraine with Ambassador Chas Freeman

Chas Freeman is a former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security during the Clinton Administration. His 30+ years in the United State Foreign Service included posts as U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs; Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge d’affaires in the American Embassies in both Bangkok and Beijing; and Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. State Department.

Ambassador Freeman was the principal American interpreter during President Nixon’s path-breaking visit to China in 1972. In addition to his Middle Eastern, African, East Asian and European diplomatic experience, he served in India from 1966 to 1968.

After working in the private sector as Chairman of the Board of a Washington-based business development firm, in 2009 he accepted the request that he return to government to chair the U.S. National Intelligence Council. But following a campaign of public vilification by right-wing elements of the American Israel Lobby, he concluded that it would be impossible for him to succeed in the job and he withdrew his acceptance of it.

At various times Ambassador Freeman was president, officer or trustee of The Middle East Policy Council, the United States-China Policy Foundation, the Atlantic Council, the Institute for Defense Analyses, The Washington World Affairs Council, the American Academy of Diplomacy, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, a much sought-after public speaker and the author of five books including Americas Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East. Over the past several years he has been speaking and writing on the many lessons of the Ukraine War. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om0omxonClU

Today Ambassador Freeman is a visiting scholar at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.