The Arnold A. Saltzman Institute and the SIPA Veterans Association welcome Council on Foreign Relations Fellows, Douglas Climan from the U.S Department of State, Col Willard Buhl from the U.S Marine Corps and Stacia George from USAID to discuss the successes, failures, and realities of civilian-military coordination in shaping political outcomes in unstable environments through stabilization initiatives.

Douglas Climan joined CFR from the U.S. Mission to Afghanistan, where he served as principal officer of the consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif and concurrently as senior civilian representative to the International Security Assistance Force’s Northern Regional Command. Previously, Mr. Climan served as economic counselor in U.S. Embassies in Buenos Aires, Kabul, and Islamabad. Before joining the U.S. Department of State, he worked in corporate finance for Chemical Bank and for Japan’s NEC. Mr. Climan holds a BA in economics from Brown University, an MBA in finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and an MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Colonel Willard Buhl joins the Council for Foreign Relations after commanding the Fifth Marine Regiment for the past two years. Colonel Buhl has served in a variety of command positions, including commanding 3d Bn, 1st Marines in Iraq and Operation Al-Fajr, the clearing of Fallujah in November 2004. He also served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs, and has served in Iceland, Somalia, Panama and throughout the Middle East.
He holds a BA in international relations from Cal State Chico and MAs in military science and national security and strategic studies from Marine Corps University.

Ms. George joined CFR after working for ten years with USAID on conflict issues, most recently with USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (USAID/OTI) as a Senior Transition Advisor and serving on USAID’s Counterinsurgency and Countering Violent Extremism Policy Task Team. Other assignments with USAID/OTI include serving in Peshawar for a year and a half as USAID/OTI’s Country Representative for their program in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, managing USAID/OTI’s Afghanistan program as the Deputy Team Leader for Asia and the Middle East, and designing and launching new programs while in the field in Colombia, Nepal, and Sudan. She also served from 2003 to 2006 with USAID/OTI as its Deputy Country Representative and later Country Representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo managing a program to reintegrate ex-combatants and victims of sexual violence back into their communities while educating the public on the peace process. Ms. George attended Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies for her Masters Degree in International Conflict Management and Economics.

SIPA Professor and Institute member Austin Long will moderate the event.