Robert Blake oversees U.S. relations with troubled South and Central Asian region

As Assistant Secretary of State for for the region, Robert Blake helps shape U.S. policy with South and Central Asia, home to countries such as Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh. He works with Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, make sure U.S. policy toward those countries is synchronized with the perspective of India and the countries of the region.

A career foreign service member and former ambassador to Sri Lanka, Blake oversees the diplomatic instruments used in the region, such as trade agreements or educational cooperation, but also negotiates agreements for U.S. military transit of troops and supplies into Afghanistan. Blake leads bilateral dialogues with the countries of the region, from rising global player India to the regional power Kazakhstan.

Path to power

The son and grandson of diplomats, Blake grew up traveling the world. He lived in Zaire and Tunisia as well as Mali, where his father, Robert Blake, Sr., served as ambassador. “I was very familiar with the foreign service lifestyle and enjoyed it a great deal,” he said.

After graduating from Harvard, he worked for a (public interest) environmental group for several years before returning to international affairs – and college — for a master’s degree at the Johns Hopkins University’s School for Advanced International Studies. He was accepted into the foreign service and went to work at the U.S. embassies in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt during the 1990s.

Encouraged by the former ambassador to Turkey, Mark Grossman, Blake returned to Washington in 1998 to become senior desk officer for Turkey at the State Department.

“Most foreign service officers try to have a balance between Washington and going overseas,” Blake said about his career trajectory. Working in the capital provides important knowledge the political process, from the State Department itself to how policies are coordinated with other agencies.

“We’re working very hard to expand our engagement with all the countries of Central Asia,” he said.

During Blake’s time in Washington, U.S.-Turkey relations expanded, with Turkey engaged in NATO and the Kosovo conflict. “It was a growing relationship of great strategic importance to the United States,” he said.

Blake then turned toward the South and Central Asian region, following the recommendation of Frank Wisner. Wiesner had been Ambassador to Egypt (where Blake worked for him) and later to India. He encouraged Blake to work in the Asian country.

Blake became deputy to the U.S. ambassador to India in 2003 as President George W. Bush was looking to expand the relationship between the two countries. David Mulford, Ambassador to India at the time, said Blake’s strength was his breadth of knowledge about the country. “He is competent and knowledgeable in a huge range of areas,” Mulford said. “He understands the strategic and political challenges of the region.”

Blake would continue to focus on South and Central Asia, becoming Ambassador to Sri Lanka in 2006 and returning to the State Department to oversee U.S. policy toward South and Central Asia in 2009.

“It was a bit of a conscious choice,” he said about his shift from the Middle East to Central Asia. “I always wanted to go where the action was and where America’s national interests were centered.” The region, he said, offers “tremendous opportunities, but also tremendous challenges.”

An interview with Robert Blake

While Blake isn’t directly responsible for Afghanistan and Pakistan (that’s the job of U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke), he helps organize bilateral consultations such as in March 2010 in Washington and syncs the regional relations with U.S.-Afghanistan policy.

Blake also works with countries that aren’t in the spotlight as often, such as rapidly developing India or Kyrgystan, whose government was overthrown in April 2010. Across the region, Blake helps negotiate bilateral treaties, trade agreements and facilitates educational cooperation.

In his own words

Speaking about the response to the crisis in Kyrgyzstan, Blake explained that coordinating the different government agencies — and international partners — is a complex process. Countries around the world, he said, look to the U.S. to lead the way.

The issues

Extremism and instability – With the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and terrorist groups operating out of the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, extremism is one of the most important issues in the region.

The Central Asian states, Blake said, “are very concerned about the potential for some of the instability,” particularly terrorists operating from the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, to “spread into Central Asia.” (See video).

With tools such as development aid and resources to support the region’s economic growth, the State Department seeks to counter the spread of extremism. “So much of the potential extremism that you see is derived from frustration – the inability to find opportunities, particularly economic opportunities like jobs,” Blake said about young people in countries like Bangladesh, Nepal or Pakistan. The U.S. funds projects in these countries to help regional development.

India and Pakistan – Both expanding the U.S.’ relationship with India and Pakistan individually as well as helping to ease tensions between the two countries are important goals of U.S. policy in Central Asia.

The U.S. supports Pakistan’s increased efforts to combat extremists along the country’s border with Afghanistan, “encourage[ing] the Pakistanis to deploy as many troops to that battlefield, away from the Indian border.” While Richard Hoolbroke is the State Department’s point man for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Blake helps coordinate those efforts with the other countries in the region.

Years of working in India help Blake navigate the tense relationship between India and Pakistan – a relationship the U.S. tries to transform into a more cooperative one. “We need to work very closely with both of those countries … and try to stabilize relations between the two of them,” Blake said, calling this goal “a very, very important strategic interest for the United States.”

In addition to easing tensions over issues such as nuclear proliferation and the Kashmir region, working closer with India is another important aim.

“India is going to be one of the great powers of the 21st century, along with China and the United States,” Blake said. “We’re cooperating on every (imaginable) bilateral front that you can think of.” India’s over 1.17 billion people make it the world’s largest democracy, an important trade partner to the U.S. and a budding global power.

“We’re also working increasingly on a lot of these big, global issues like food security, climate change, non-proliferation, global trade,” Blake said. This cooperation with India, he said, “is really going to be one of our most important relationships.”

In April 2010, the government of Kyrgyzstan was violently overthrown. The county is home to a U.S. military base, an important transit route into Afghanistan. The U.S. has funneled aid to the country and coordinated its efforts with other important partners such as Russia and the European Union. In this video, Blake describes the response to the uprising.

Education is another key area of cooperation. Both Kazakhstan and India are expanding their ties with American institutions, for example through an English-language University being built in Kazakhstan. Student exchanges, Blake said, “have a real ripple effect on our relations,” because they create a cross-cultural understanding. “Those are the kind of things that we like to very much encourage and will do everything we can to support,” he said.

Every day, Blake coordinates with U.S. ambassadors to the region and provides guidance from Washington and a broader view of the region. Tools such as email make the contact much easier than during his grandfather’s time in the foreign service, when instructions were delivered via shipped letters.

The network

Blake’s direct boss is Undersecretary for Political Affairs William Burns. Patrick Moon and George Krol are Blake’s subordinates as deputy assistant secretaries.

Through his time at various U.S. embassies, Blake is part of a wide network of foreign service officers that includes former Ambassador to India David Mulford, and former Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner, both of whom Blake worked for at their respective posts. Blake cites Mark Grossman, former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, as another important influence.

A number of fellow alumni of the School of Advanced International Studies work for the administration, including Phil Gordon, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.

Just like he received career advice from colleagues, Blake said he wants to pass on what he learned. “Mentoring and that kind of advice and encouragement is really important,” Blake said. “It’s something that I try to do myself now with a lot of our younger officers who are there in the department and overseas.”