Events Calendar

On Thursday, April 4, the Strauss Center in conjunction with the Polish Club at the University of Texas Austin will host Daniel Fried, former U.S. Ambassador to Poland, as he delivers remarks on “Poland at the Crossroads of History: NATO’s 75th Anniversary” on the exact 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO. Ambassador Fried, who is also the former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and current Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council, will be speaking about NATO in history, its future, and the challenges it faces. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NATO is poised in one of the most significant positions since its inception, and Poland serves as a Western bulwark against Russian expansionism.

The event is one of several NATO-focused talks hosted by the Strauss Center this Spring. For our previous events, see the conference “NATO and the Future of American Security” on February 6 and the public talk “The Future of European Security: NATO, Ukraine, and Russia” on January 30.

Lunch will be provided. Please direct any questions to Susan Crane at scrane@austin.utexas.edu. Parking is available for a fee at the nearby Manor Garage and San Jacinto Garage.

Biography:

In the course of his forty-year Foreign Service career, Ambassador Fried played a key role in designing and implementing American policy in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. As Special Assistant and NSC Senior Director for Presidents Clinton and Bush, Ambassador to Poland, and Assistant Secretary of State for Europe (2005-09), Ambassador Fried helped craft the policy of NATO enlargement to Central European nations and, in parallel, NATO-Russia relations, thus advancing the goal of Europe whole, free, and at peace. During those years, the West’s community of democracy and security grew in Europe. Ambassador Fried helped lead the West’s response to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine starting in 2014: as State Department Coordinator for Sanctions Policy, he crafted U.S. sanctions against Russia, the largest U.S. sanctions program to date, and negotiated the imposition of similar sanctions by Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia.

Ambassador Fried became one of the U.S. government’s foremost experts on Central and Eastern Europe and Russia. While a student, he lived in Moscow, majored in Soviet Studies and History at Cornell University (BA magna cum laude 1975) and received an MA from Columbia’s Russian Institute and School of International Affairs in 1977. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service later that year, serving overseas in Leningrad (Human Rights, Baltic affairs, and Consular Officer), and Belgrade (Political Officer); and in the Office of Soviet Affairs in the State Department.

As Polish Desk Officer in the late 1980s, Fried was one of the first in Washington to recognize the impending collapse of Communism in Poland, and helped develop the immediate response of the George H.W. Bush Administration to these developments. As Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw (1990-93), Fried witnessed Poland’s difficult but ultimately successful free market, democratic transformation, working with successive Polish governments. Ambassador Fried also served as the State Department’s first Special Envoy for the Closure of the Guantanamo (GTMO) Detainee Facility. He established procedures for the transfer of individual detainees and negotiated the transfers of 70 detainees to