Chester A. Crocker is the James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Fellow in Strategic Studies at ISD. He was previously the James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies at Georgetown, where his teaching and research focused on conflict management and regional security issues. He served as chairman of the board of the United States Institute of Peace (1992-2004) and served as a member of its board through 2011. From 1981-1989, he was U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs. As such, he was the principal diplomatic architect and mediator in the prolonged negotiations among Angola, Cuba, and South Africa that led to Namibia’s transition to independence and to the withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola. Dr. Crocker served as a staff officer at the National Security Council (1970-72) where he worked on the Middle East, Indian Ocean, and African issues and director of African studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (1976-80). He serves on the boards Universal Corporation, Inc., a leading independent trading company in tobacco and agricultural products; Good Governance Group Ltd, a business intelligence advisory service; Dr. Crocker is a founding member of the Global Leadership Foundation and member of the Independent Advisory Board of the World Bank.

Dr. Crocker is the author of High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood (1993), co-author (with Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall) of Taming Intractable Conflicts: Mediation in the Hardest Cases (2004), and co-editor of Managing Conflict in a World Adrift (2014); Rewiring Regional Security in a Fragmented World (2011), Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (2007), Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict(2005); Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict (2001); and Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World (1999).