Ambassador Steven Pifer

Senior Director for Russian/Eurasian Affairs, National Security Council

Steven Pifer is a senior fellow at the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe, where he focuses on arms control, Russia and Ukraine. He is also a senior adviser (non-resident) with the Center for Strategic & International Studies. He has offered commentary regarding Russia, Ukraine and arms control issues on CNN, Fox News, CNBC, BBC, National Public Radio and VOA, and his articles have appeared in the Washington Post, International Herald Tribune and Boston Globe, among others.

A retired Foreign Service Officer, his more than 25 years with the State Department focused on U.S. relations with the former Soviet Union and Europe, as well as arms control and security issues. He served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for Russia and Ukraine (2001-2004), U.S. ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2000), and special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council (1996-1997). In addition to Ukraine, he served at the U.S. embassies in Warsaw, Moscow and London as well as with the U.S. delegation to the negotiation on intermediate-range nuclear forces in Geneva.

Ambassador Pifer’s recent publications include “Reversing the Decline: An Agenda for U.S.-Russian Relations in 2009,” Brookings paper (January 2009); “Averting Crisis in Ukraine,” Council on Foreign Relations special report (January 2009); and “Engaging Ukraine in 2009,” Brookings paper (March 2009) with Anders Aslund and Jonathan Elkind.

Writing

• Judging the New START Treaty
  Politico • By Steven Pifer and Strobe Talbott • March 29, 2010