Andrew S. Natsios

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Andrew S. Natsios is an Executive Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University (2012-present) and Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs. He currently serves as Chair of the Program Advisory Committee for HarvestPlus, which is part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and as a Fellow of the Michael E. DeBakey Institute for Comparative Cardiovascular Science and Biomedical Devices at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.

He was previously a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service (2006-2012). Professor Natsios served as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2001 to January 2006. He was the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan (2006-2007) to deal with the Darfur crisis and the North-South peace agreement. He served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1975-1987) and in state government (1999-2001) as the Secretary of Administration and Finance. He was the CEO of the Big Dig in Boston, the largest construction project in American history after a cost-overrun scandal. Professor Natsios was VP of the NGO World Vision U.S. (1993-1998). He was a member of the U.S. Army Reserves for twenty-three years, served in the Gulf War in 1991, and was a Lt. Colonel when he retired in 1995. He is a graduate of Georgetown University (BA history) and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (MPA).

Professor Natsios, with President George H. W. Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., recently edited Transforming Our World: President George H. W. Bush and American Foreign Policy. This book, available in print in December 2020, brings together a distinguished collection of foreign policy practitioners—career and political—who participated in the unfolding of international events as part the Bush administration to provide insider perspective by the people charged with carrying them out.

Professor Natsios is the author of three books: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1997), The Great North Korean Famine (2001), and Sudan, South Sudan, and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know; collaborated on thirteen other books; and has published opinion pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. He has published twenty-eight journal articles in, among others, Foreign Affairs, the Washington Quarterly, the Foreign Service Journal, Parameters, and PRISM.

News and Podcasts

CSIS podcast: Is Development the Answer to the Forced Migration Crisis?
"Most people don't want to leave their homes; they leave under political or economic duress. To effectively deal with the root causes of the refugee problem, we need development programs with long time horizons to achieve economic growth, stronger governance, and improved citizen security. Director of the Scowcroft Institute Professor Andrew Natsios sat down with Dan Runde from CSIS to discuss the importance of development in addressing the forced migration crisis: listen to the full podcast here."

Interview with Patrick Fine, CEO of FHI 360
“The United States is the global leader in humanitarian aid, and our aid programs reflect our emphasis on human rights which underpins our democracy. Expressing these ideals throughout the world through our aid programs contributes to our diplomatic and defense objectives, and thus the aid program is a crucial part of U.S. foreign policy. However, by instrumentalizing aid – in other words, making it a means to an end rather than an end in itself – we damage its use as a tool of national power. In this interview with Patrick Fine, CEO of the development organization FHI 360, Director of the Scowcroft Institute Professor Andrew Natsios discusses the dangerous implications of the recent threats to the aid budget.”

Podcast on Putin’s New Russia
In the recent special issue on “Putin’s New Russia: Fragile State or Revisionist Power?” the South Central Review brings together a collection of essays on how Russia’s external demonstrations of strength relate to growing evidence of its internal weaknesses. While Putin has positioned his country as an authoritarian alternative to western, liberal democracies, the gap between his grand strategy and Russia’s capabilities and internal fragility is so great that he will eventually fail dramatically. Unfortunately, as Nicholas Eberstadt writes in one of the essays, a great many very unpleasant things can happen before this gap leads to Russia’s failure. In this blog for Johns Hopkins University Press, I share my thoughts on some of the alarming issues raised in this collection of essays.

Additional News and Podcasts

• Putin’s New Russia: Fragile State or Revisionist Power?
• UN aid support dwindles for North Korea, Syria's silent partner on chemical weapons
• Obama Wants More Food Aid to be Locally Sourced
• Senate approves Kerry as secretary of State
• The Black Swan Threat of al Qaeda in Africa
• Senators Don't Make Good Foreign Policy Advisers
• A Way Out of the Greek Financial Crisis
• Why North Korea Launched the Missile
• What the U.S. Should Do About Pakistan
• The Dangers of the Coming North Korean Famine
• Strike on Sudan arms factory points to Iran threat to Israel
• The Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt's Coming Economic Storm
• “The Clash of the Counter-Bureaucracy and Development”, Center for Global Development
• “North Korea: A Different Perspective”, Korea Chair Platform (on-line), CSIS
• “The Coming Food Coups”, Washington Quarterly, Andrew Natsios and Kelly Doley.
• “Africa does not have to Starve”, Wall Street Journal, Dr. Norman Borlaug and Andrew Natsios