Burma and the U.S.: New directions in a time of change

Priscilla Clapp, Former Minister-Counselor in the U.S. Foreign Service and Chief of Mission—Burma “Burma and the United States: New directions in a time of change.”

During her 30-year career with the U.S. Government, Ms. Clapp served as Chief of Mission and permanent Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Burma (1999-2002), Deputy Chief of Mission in the U.S. Embassy in South Africa (1993-96), Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Refugee Programs (1989-1993), Deputy Political Counselor in the US Embassy in Moscow (1986-88), and chief of political-military affairs in the US Embassy in Japan (1981-85). She also worked on the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, in its East Asian, Political Military, and International Organizations Bureaus, and with the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. She speaks Russian, Japanese, French, and some Burmese.

Prior to government service, Ms. Clapp spent ten years in foreign policy and arms control research, with the MIT Center for International Studies and as a Research Associate at the Brookings Institution. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Ms. Clapp’s books include: with Morton Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Brookings, 2006), with I.M.Destler et al., Managing an Alliance: the Politics of U.S.-Japanese Relations (Brookings, 1976), with Morton Halperin, U.S.-Japanese Relations in the 1970's (Harvard, 1974). She is a frequent media commentator and the author of numerous publications on Burma and U.S. Burma policy with USIP, the Brookings Institution, the East-West Center, Australia National University, the Asia Society and others.

Sponsored by the UofL Center for Asian Democracy.