Paul Wolfowitz

Culminating an extraordinary career as a statesman and world ambassador, Paul Wolfowitz served as the 10th president of the World Bank Group from June 1, 2005 to June 30, 2007. Prior to that appointment, Ambassador Wolfowitz spent more than three decades as a public servant and educator, including 24 years in government service under seven U.S. presidents. His experience in the developing world includes three years in Indonesia as U.S. Ambassador, and his Washington-based policy work on East Asian affairs. Currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Wolfowitz speaks with great depth about his accomplishments during key periods of U.S. relations with China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population.

As ambassador to Indonesia, he became known for his advocacy of reform and political openness and for his interest in development issues, which dates back to his doctoral dissertation on water desalination in the Middle East. Wolfowitz's career has involved him deeply in a number of important transitions to democracy, which gave him a deep appreciation of the power of democracy as a force in world politics, a force that could advance both the interests and ideals of the United States.

He conducted the Defense Department's first in-depth look at security challenges of the Persian Gulf in the late 1970s, a study that led to a number of significant innovations a decade later in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. At the direction of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, he worked with then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, to fashion a post-war defense strategy.

In 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed Wolfowitz Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, where he played an important role in planning and implementing the successful liberation of Kuwait, including organizing the fundraising effort that raised $50 billion in multilateral support and developing the strategy that kept Israel from entering the war. As Deputy Secretary of Defense, his responsibilities included oversight of the budget process as well as development of policy to respond to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and to guide the conduct of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He also played a role in shaping the U.S. interventions in Somalia in 1992, which rescued hundreds of thousands of people from starvation, and in Liberia in 2003 that brought an end to one of Africa's bloodiest civil wars. Wolfowitz served as a military analyst under Ronald Reagan, first as Director of Policy Planning for the Department of State and later as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He was Director of Policy Planning for the Jimmy Carter State Department, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Wolfowitz has also been a leader in higher education. From 1994-2001, he served as Dean and Professor of International Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University. Earlier, he taught political science at Yale University. Ambassador Wolfowitz has written widely on foreign policy, diplomacy and national security, and was a member of the advisory boards of Foreign Affairs and The National Interest. A distinguished statesman and an emphatic pursuer of peace and world prosperity, Ambassador Paul Wolfowitz brings his peerless experience and wisdom to every presentation.