Paul J. Saunders

Russia, Eurasia, Political Development, Energy Security, National Security

Paul J. Saunders is the President of the Energy Innovation Reform Project and a Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Center for the National Interest. His current work focuses on U.S.-Russia relations, America’s role in an evolving international system, and energy and climate change.

Until January 2019, he was Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Center for the National Interest and a member of the Center’s Board of Directors. He also directed the Center’s U.S.-Russian Relations Program in addition to leading projects on other issues, including energy and climate change and U.S.- Japan relations, and served as Associate Publisher of the foreign policy magazine The National Interest, published bi-monthly by the Center for the National Interest.

Mr. Saunders served in the Bush Administration from 2003 to 2005 as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs. In that capacity, he worked on a broad range of transnational issues, in particular with respect to Russia, Ukraine, and the former Soviet Union, as well as Iraq, China and India.

Earlier, Mr. Saunders served as Director of the Center from 1997 to 2003, and was Assistant Director of the Center from its founding in 1994 until 1997. In 2000, he was a Senior Policy Advisor to the Speaker’s Advisory Group on Russia, established by the Republican Policy Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. He has written extensively for major newspapers and journals, and is a frequent commentator in national media, including CNN, Fox, and MSNBC. Mr. Saunders is the editor of A New Direction in U.S.-Russia Relations? America’s Challenges & Opportunities in Dealing with Russia; Costs of a New Cold War: The U.S.-Russia Confrontation over Ukraine and Enduring Rivalry: American and Russian Perspectives on the Former Soviet Space and the author of works including Extended Deterrence in a Changing Asia; Russian Energy and European Security; and Russia and the Greater Middle East: Challenges and Opportunities (with Geoffrey Kemp).

You can follow him on Twitter @1796Farewell.