Herbst John

John HERBST is the Director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center and a member of the Board of Directors at the Western NIS Enterprise Fund. Previously, he was the Director of the Center for Complex Operations at the National Defense University. Ambassador Herbst served for thirty-one years as a foreign service officer in the U.S. Department of State. He was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he was the ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2000 to 2003. Ambassador Herbst previously served as the U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem; the Principal Deputy to the ambassador-at-large for the Newly Independent States; the Director of the Office of Independent States and Commonwealth Affairs; the Director of Regional Affairs in the Near East Bureau; and at the embassies in Tel Aviv, Moscow, and Saudi Arabia. He has received two Presidential Distinguished Service Awards, the Secretary of State’s Career Achievement Award, the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Distinguished Civilian Service Award. Ambassador Herbst has published books on stability operations in Central Asia, Ukraine, and Russia.