Kazakhstan, Ukraine, & the Russian Way of War

George A. Krol
U.S. Ambassador, retired

Ambassador George Krol retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in November 2018, concluding a 36-year diplomatic career with his final assignment as U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan.  He has spent the last 30 years dealing with and serving in states that emerged from the former Soviet Union such as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.  Krol also held ambassadorships to Uzbekistan (2011-2014) and Belarus (2003-2006,) and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for Central Asia (2008-2010).  Earlier in his career, Krol served as Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow (1999-2002,) Director of the Office of Russian Affairs (1997-99) and Special Assistant to the Ambassador-at-Large for the New Independent States (1995-97) at the State Department.  As an officer serving in Leningrad/St Petersburg (1990-92) Krol reported from the Baltic republics and covered the collapse of the USSR there and in Northwest Russia.  Krol has received numerous State Department awards, including the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award as well as decorations from the governments of Lithuania, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.

Ambassador Krol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and grew up in Clifton, New Jersey.  He is a graduate of Harvard University (A.B. 1978) and Oxford University (B.A., M.A. 1980.)  He resides in Middletown, Rhode Island and currently teaches as an Adjunct Professor at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.  Krol lectures on foreign policy topics to local audiences and is also an Associate Fellow at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies where he gives talks, writes and participates in Davis Center activities.

Eric McGlinchey Associate Professor of Politics and Government Director, International Relations Policy Task Force George Mason University

Eric McGlinchey is Associate Professor of Politics and Government and Director of the International Relations Policy Task Force at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. McGlinchey received his PhD from Princeton University and is the author of Chaos, Violence, Dynasty: Politics and Islam in Central Asia (2011). His current research focuses on Central Asian perceptions of Russia, China, and the United States.

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili
Director, Center for Governance and Markets
Associate Professor of International Affairs
University of Pittsburgh

Jennifer Murtazashvili is Director of the Center for Governance and Markets and Associate Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Land, the State, and War: Property Institutions and Political Order in Afghanistan and Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan, which were both published by Cambridge University Press. She is a nonresident scholar with the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the President of the Central Eurasian Studies Society.

Paul Stronski
Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Paul Stronski is a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program, where his research focuses on the relationship between Russia and neighboring countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Until January 2015, Stronski served as a senior analyst for Russian domestic politics in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He was director for Russia and Central Asia on the U.S. National Security Council Staff from 2012 to 2014, where he supported the president, the national security advisor, and other senior U.S. officials on the development and coordination of policy toward Russia. Before that, he worked as a State Department analyst on Russia from 2011 to 2012, and on Armenia and Azerbaijan from 2007 to 2010. A former career U.S. foreign service officer, Stronski served in Hong Kong from 2005 to 2007.
Stronski has taught history and post-Soviet affairs at Stanford, George Mason, and George Washington universities. Prior to his government service, he worked on a USAID-sponsored technical assistance project for the healthcare sector in Central Asia.
He is the author of Tashkent: Forging a Soviet City, 1930-1966 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010), which won the 2011 Central Eurasian Studies Society Book Award for History and the Humanities. Since the mid-1990s, he has undertaken extensive research and work experience in Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Armenia.