Meridian Council Salon Series: A Conversation with Her Excellency Emily Haber, Ambassador of Germany featuring Dr. Angela Stent, Julia Ioffe, and Michael Allen

On May 11, 2022, Meridian International Center organized its second reception in the 2022 Salon Dinner Series. These curated salon receptions and dinners are designed to spark thoughtful dialogue among different perspectives and promote the exchange of ideas over a shared meal. The Meridian Council was honored to be hosted by Ambassador Emily Haber and the German Embassy.

Ambassador Haber along with Julia Ioffe, Dr. Angela Stent, and Michael Allen discussed the current crisis in Ukraine including the international community's potential role and Russia's notable history. The reception was attended by Meridian Council members, international security experts, journalists, and former Ambassadors.

Panelists:

Mrs. Emily Haber has been German Ambassador to the United States since June 2018. Immediately prior to this, Emily Haber, a career foreign service officer, was deployed to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, serving as State Secretary overseeing security and migration at the height of the refugee crisis in Europe. In this capacity, she worked closely with the US administration on topics ranging from the fight against international terrorism to global cyberattacks and cybersecurity. In 2009, she was appointed Political Director and, in 2011, State Secretary at the Foreign Office, the first woman to hold either post. Earlier in her career, she served at the German Embassy in Ankara; in Berlin, she has served as Deputy Head of the Cabinet and Parliamentary Liaison Division, as Director of the OSCE Division, and as Deputy Director-General for the Western Balkans. Emily Haber has extensive knowledge of the Soviet Union and Russia, having worked both in the Soviet Union Division at the German Foreign Office and, on various occasions, at the German Embassy in Moscow, where she served as Head of the Economic Affairs Section and Head of the Political Affairs Department. Emily Haber attended schools in New Delhi, Bonn, Paris, Brussels, Washington, and Athens. From 1975 to 1980, she studied history and ethnology in Cologne, earning her PhD with a dissertation on German foreign policy during the Morocco crisis on the eve of World War I. Emily Haber is married to Hansjörg Haber. The couple has two sons.

Dr. Angela Stent is regarded as one of the leading experts on Russia and its foreign policy. Her newest book, Putin’s World, is described by William Burns, current CIA director and former Deputy Secretary of State, as “the definitive guide to understanding the tangled history of post-Cold War Russia…could not be more timely.”  She is currently Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution where she co-chairs the Hewitt Forum on Post-Soviet Affairs. She formerly directed the Center on Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies at Georgetown University where she was Professor of Government and Foreign Service. She has served as National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council.  She also served in the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State. Her latest book  Putin’s World  won the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy’s prize for the best book on U.S-Russian Relations. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called it a “brilliant exposition of Putin’s strategy.”  Her previous book, The Limits of Partnership: U.S. Russian Relations in the 21^st Century” was described as “magisterial” by The Economist and was honored by the American Academy of Diplomacy in 2014 as “the best book on the practice of American diplomacy.” She was a member of the senior advisory panel for NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe for Admiral James Stavridis and General Philip Breedlove. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  She is a contributing editor to Survival and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Cold War Studies, Internationale Politik and Post-Soviet Affairs. She has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Russia and Central Asia. She was a Trustee of the Eurasia Foundation. Dr. Stent received her B.A. from Cambridge University, her MSc. with distinction from the London School of Economics and Political Science and her M.A. and PhD. from Harvard University.

Julia Ioffe is a founding partner and Washington correspondent at Puck, a new media venture covering the inside conversations in the corners of American power. Prior to joining Puck, Julia has worked at and written for a number of prominent publications, including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The New Republic, and Politico. Between 2009 and 2012, she was the Moscow correspondent for Foreign Policy and the New Yorker. She was also a Fulbright Scholar to Russia. She was born in Moscow and majored in history and Russian studies at Princeton University.

Michael Allen has spent his career in the national security arena including in the White House, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the private sector. Currently, Mr. Allen is Managing Director of Beacon Global Strategies LLC which advises clients on the intersection of business and national security. Mr. Allen is a frequent contributor and commentator on national security and foreign policy issues on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox and is the author of Blinking Red, Crisis and Compromise in American Intelligence after 9/11 (Potomac Books, 2013).