Robert Kagan

American historian and foreign policy commentator

Robert Kagan is an American historian and foreign policy commentator. He is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a contributing editor at The Weekly Standard, a columnist for The Washington Post, and the author of the best-selling book Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (2003).

From 1985-1988, Kagan was Deputy for Policy in the State Department's Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. From 1984-1985, he was a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and principal speechwriter to Secretary of State George P. Schultz. In 1983, he served as foreign policy advisor to Congressman Jack Kemp and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the United States Information Agency. In 1981, he was Assistant Editor at the Public Interest.

Kagan holds a bachelor's degree from Yale College, a master's degree in public policy and international relations from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and a PhD in history from American University, Washington DC . He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Alexander Hamilton fellow in American diplomatic history at American University.

His first book, A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1977-1990, was published in 1996. He is currently at work on a history of American foreign policy. Kagan's articles on foreign policy have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Commentary, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, Policy Review, and The Weekly Standard.