Karl Eikenberry

Eikenberry was born in 1951 in Hammond, Indiana and graduated from Goldsboro High School in Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 1969.[6] He then attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant upon graduation in 1973.[7]

He received an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, where he would later return as a National Security Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He also earned an M.A. in political science from Stanford University.[8] In addition, Eikenberry has studied in Hong Kong at the UK Ministry of Defence Chinese Language School, earning the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Interpreter's Certificate for Mandarin Chinese, and at Nanjing University, earning an advanced degree in Chinese history.[9]

Eikenberry during a press conference at the Pentagon on December 8, 2005.

In the Army, Eikenberry commanded and held staff positions in airborne, ranger, and mechanized infantry units in the United States, Korea, and Europe. He also served as Assistant Army Attaché and later as the Defense Attaché in the United States Embassy in Beijing, People's Republic of China. His other political-military assignments included Senior Country Director for China and Taiwan in the Office of Secretary of Defense, Foreign Area Officer Division Chief and Deputy Director of the Strategy, Plans and Policy Directorate on the Army Staff,[10] and Director of Strategic Planning and Policy Directorate, United States Pacific Command, Camp Smith, Hawaii. Eikenberry served two tours of duty in the war in Afghanistan.[11] His first tour in Afghanistan, from September 2002 to September 2003, he filled two positions—his primary duty was as the U.S. Security Coordinator for Afghanistan and the second position was the Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan (OMC-A). As the Security Coordinator, he worked closely with Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan and Pakistan Lakhdar Brahimi to forge a unified international effort to build a cohesive security sector.Security sector reform (SSR) followed a lead-nation approach agreed upon in January 2002, in which the G8 nations would each lead a specific sector—the United States was responsible for the Afghan National Army; Germany, the Afghan Police; UK, counter-narcotics; Italy, judicial reform; and Japan and the United Nations took on the task of disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating the militias.[12] In his role as Chief of the OMC-A he was the chief architect of the strategy that established the new Afghan National Army.

Eikenberry succeeded Lieutenant General David Barno as Commander, Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, on May 4, 2005.[13] During his second tour from May 2005 to February 2007, he was responsible for transferring operational responsibility for southern and eastern Afghanistan to the NATO International Security Assistance Force and the international training of the Afghan National Army and Police Forces. He also commanded the military task force sent to Pakistan to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in the wake of the October 8th, 2005 Kashmir earthquake. He completed his military career in Brussels, Belgium as the Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee.[9]

Visiting Afghan provincial elders as US ambassador in 2009

On January 29, 2009, the New York Times reported that President Barack Obama had chosen Eikenberry to be the next U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, replacing William Braucher Wood. The choice of a career army officer for the sensitive post was described by The Times as "highly unusual". On April 3, 2009, the Senate confirmed Eikenberry's nomination, and on April 29, 2009, he was sworn in as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan.[11] The official announcement of his nomination was made on March 11.[14] Following his confirmation as ambassador, he retired from the U.S. military with the rank of Lieutenant General on April 28, 2009. As the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, he led the civilian surge directed by President Obama, overseeing the growth of the embassy staff from 350 to 1,400 civilian personnel from eighteen United States Government departments and agencies, and the administration of bilateral development assistance budget of over $4 billion USD annually.

Leak of classified cables

Ambassador Eikenberry with Afghan ministers at the Kabul Museum in March 2011.

In November 2009, Eikenberry sent two classified cables to his superiors in which he assessed the proposed U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. A description of the content of the cables was leaked soon after. In January 2010, the New York Times obtained and published the cables,[15] which "show just how strongly the current ambassador feels about President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan government, the state of its military, and the chances that a troop buildup will actually hurt the war effort by making the Karzai government too dependent on the United States".[16] In June 2010, General McChrystal was described in a Rolling Stone profile as feeling blindsided by Eikenberry's statements in the leaked cables. On the other hand, Eikenberry is described elsewhere as being frank and vocal about his concerns about the Karzai government as being an unreliable partner for the United States in its efforts in Afghanistan.[17]

In September 2011 Eikenberry became the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University[18] and subsequently the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. While at Stanford University, Eikenberry joined the faculty of the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies, served as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences congressionally mandated Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences, acted as a consultant for NATO and the RAND Corporation, and lectured and written on civil-military relations, U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy and Sino American relations, counter-insurgency and state-building strategies, and the contribution of the arts and humanities to America's international competitiveness. He was elected to be a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.[19]

• Eikenberry, Karl W. (February 1988). "The Imjin War" (PDF). Military Review. 68 (2): 27–82.
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (1994). "The campaigns of Cao Cao". Military Review. 74 (8): 56–64.
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (February 1995). Explaining and Influencing Chinese Arms Transfers. McNair Papers. Washington, D.C.: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University. Archived from the original on 2009-01-09. Retrieved 2009-02-01.
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (Summer 1996). "Take No Casualties". Parameters. 26 (2): 109–118. Archived from the original on June 9, 2007.
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (November 2009). "Ambassador Eikenberry's Cables on U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan". New York Times.
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (May 2012). "Stop Ignoring Taiwan". Foreign Policy.
• Eikenberry, Karl W.; Hennessy, John L.; Sheehan, James J.; Kennedy, David M.; Perry, William J. (Spring 2012). "The Future of the American Military" (PDF). American Academy of Arts & Sciences: Bulletin. 65 (3).
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (January 2013). "The Militarization of US Foreign Policy" (PDF). American Foreign Policy Interests. 35: 1–8. doi:10.1080/10803920.2013.757952. S2CID 154672685.
• Eikenberry, Karl W.; Kennedy, David M. (May 26, 2013). "Americans and Their Military, Drifting Apart". New York Times.
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (September 2013). "The Limits of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Afghanistan". Foreign Affairs.
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (December 2013). "Reassessing The All-Volunteer Force". The Washington Quarterly. 36: 7–24. doi:10.1080/0163660x.2013.751647. S2CID 153668204.
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (June 2014). "The American Calculus of Military Intervention". Survival: Global Politics and Strategy (3 ed.). 56 (3): 264–271. doi:10.1080/00396338.2014.920157. S2CID 154842453.
• Fukuyama, Francis; Eikenberry, Karl W. (September 2014). "Friendless Obama needs Middle Eastern allies of convenience". Financial Times.
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (2014). "Thucydides Trap". American Review: Global Perspectives on America. Archived from the original on 2014-11-06. Retrieved 2014-11-06.
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (June 2015). "China's Place in U.S. Foreign Policy". The American Interest. 10 (6).
• Eikenberry, Karl W. (Fall 2017). "Civil Wars and Global Disorder: Threats and Opportunities" (PDF). Daedalus. 146 (4).

• Karl Eikenberry at Stanford, including his publications
• The Runaway General:Stanley McChrystal, Obama's top commander in Afghanistan, Rolling Stone (June 22, 2010)
• Former general talks on U.S., war The Tartan, Carnegie Mellon University, September 13, 2013.
• Eikenberry and Michael McFaul on Foreign Policy, Stanford University, November 11, 2014.
• Appearances on C-SPAN