Michael McFaul

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Michael McFaul

Michael Anthony McFaul (born October 1, 1963 in Glasgow , Montana ) is an American professor of political science and diplomat . He was US Ambassador of the United States to Russia from January 10, 2012 to February 2014 . McFaul is a graduate of Stanford University .

Life

education

After attending school in Montana , McFaul studied at Stanford University in California . In 1986 he completed his studies there with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in international relations and Slavic languages and a Master of Arts (MA) in Eastern European Studies . Before that, he had spent two semesters in the Soviet Union as part of a study abroad . First in the summer of 1983 at the Leningrad State University and then in 1985 for a semester at the Moscow State University . He then went to Oxford , where he received a Rhodes Scholarship from 1986 to 1988 . McFaul obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in International Relations at Oxford in 1991 .

career

From 1991 to 1992 he was Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and from 1992 to 1994 Research Associate at the Center for International Security and Arms Control there .

He has been Professor of Political Science at Stanford University since 1995. From 1995 to 2001 as Assistant Professor and from 2001 to 2005 as Associate Professor . He was then director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies from 2005 to 2009 .

US Secretary of State Kerry, US Ambassador McFaul, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Russian President Putin in Moscow on May 7, 2013.

In January 2009, McFaul went to Washington, DC and worked there for about three years in the Obama administration for the US National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs. For President Obama, McFaul, who is also a member of the Democratic Party, was, as it were, the architect of his Russia policy and the President therefore decided in September 2011 to appoint him as the successor to John Beyrle as American ambassador to Russia. On January 10, 2012, McFaul took up the post as ambassador to Moscow, but two years later, in February 2014, returned to California for family reasons in the USA, where he has since returned to Stanford University as a professor of political science. Successor to his post in Moscow was John F. Tefft .

Meeting with the Russian opposition

A week after he took up the post on January 17, 2012, there was a meeting with top figures of the Russian opposition in the American embassy. Former Ambassador and then Deputy Secretary of State William Burns was present at the meeting. McFaul mentioned in his blog entry on the same day the visit of Burns and a meeting with members of the Russian opposition and with representatives of NGOs. But what was talked about, he said nothing. The meeting was publicized across the country because a camera team from the private broadcaster NTW , which belongs to the Russian media group Gazprom-Media , stood in front of the US embassy building and asked the opposition politicians who had arrived one after the other about the meaning of the meeting at the embassy. The reactions of the opposition politicians, who apparently did not expect a camera team, were rather monosyllabic. Yevgenia Tschirikowa , activist with Strategija-31 and the Movement to Defend the Khimki Forest, Boris Nemtsov , co-chairman of the Freedom Party (PARNAS), Lev Ponomarev , chairman of the Movement “For Human Rights”, Sergei Mitrochin from the Yabloko party , Oksana Dmitrijewa, deputy chairwoman of the Just Russia party and Lilja Schibanova, chairwoman of the election observation organization Golos , showed little interest in explaining to NTW viewers what the purpose of the meeting with top US diplomats was. The behavior of the representatives of the opposition and NGOs had resulted in considerable damage to the image of the Russian opposition. The video clips of the individual interviews, which were uploaded to the Internet, met with great interest. The then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev tried to defuse the matter in a statement in favor of McFaul, saying that one of the tasks of an ambassador was to speak to a country's opposition forces. The only thing that should not be forgotten is that as an American ambassador you are on Russian soil.

In an interview, McFaul mentioned that the Russian government had helped investigate threats he had received as an ambassador.

Legislation on Foreign Agents

In the early days of McFaul's activity in Moscow, the Russian law on social organizations as foreign agents in Russia was passed in 2012 . McFaul did not only regard the comparisons made at the time between the still applied US law on the registration of foreign agents FARA ( Foreign Agents Registration Act ) of 1938 with the new Russian law as extremely regrettable, he saw the comparison as simply wrong. McFaul felt very disturbed by the development. For comparison, he cited a list of organizations that had been entered in a register in 2011 under the FARA Act. However, he basically supported the idea that NGOs should disclose their sources of funding so that there is greater transparency in this area. The subject was particularly sensitive to McFaul because he was personally closely associated with one of the organizations covered by the law then and still is today.

Max Shatto dies

During McFaul's tenure, the mysterious death of a three-year-old Russian adopted child in Texas, Max Shatto / Maksim Kusmin, also occurred in January 2013. The boy had only come to the United States in November 2012. This case, which was not the first of its kind, caused a lot of unrest in Russia and subsequently put a strain on American-Russian relations.

After the recent fall, McFaul complained in his blog about the negative portrayal of his country in some Russian media and that the whole matter was exaggerated and instrumented by them. Shortly before, on January 1, 2013, the controversial Dima Yakovlev law came into force , which included a ban on the adoption of Russian children by US citizens. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, on the other hand, spoke out against an adoption ban. The law was passed as part of a sanctions package in December 2012 in response to the so-called Magnitsky law signed by US President Obama on December 14, 2012 .

Visa refusal in 2016

When Michael McFaul applied for a visa to enter Russia in late autumn 2016, he was refused. An employee of the Russian Foreign Ministry told journalists from TASS and RIA Novosti unofficially that the reason for the refusal of entry was not McFaul's proximity to Obama, but that McFaul could no longer get a visa "because of his active participation in the destruction of the bilateral Russian-US American relations and his incessant lobbying in favor of a campaign to put pressure on Russia. "

Activities in organizations

Michael McFaul has held a leading position in numerous international organizations. For example in the National Endowment for Democracy , in the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace , in Human Rights Watch in the Steering Committee, Europe and Eurasia Department, World Economic Forum , Hoover Institution , Eurasia Foundation , Council on Foreign Relations and others. v. m.

He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom .

Scientific reputation

Michael McFaul is considered to be one of the leading experts in the field of post-communist Russia, which is why the previous President George W. Bush took advantage of his advice on Russia and Vladimir Putin . Also in the mid-1990s, the then Russian President Boris Yeltsin sought advice from McFaul.

Personal

Michael McFaul is married to Donna Norton and has two sons with her. In addition to his native English, he also speaks fluent Russian, as well as Polish and Portuguese.

Fonts (selection)

  • Post-Communist Politics: Democratic Prospects in Russia and Eastern Europe (1993, international affairs)
  • The Troubled Birth of Russian Democracy: Parties, Personalities, and Programs (1993, international affairs)
  • Russia's 1996 Presidential Election: The End of Polarized Politics (1997, nonfiction)
  • Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin (2001, international affairs)
  • Popular Choice and Managed Democracy: The Russian Elections of 1999 and 2000 (2003, international affairs)
  • Power and Purpose: US Policy Toward Russia After the Cold War (2003, international affairs)
  • Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should and How We Can (2009, international affairs)
  • From Cold War to hot peace: an American ambassador in Putin's Russia . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018

Web links

Commons : Michael McFaul  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael A. McFaul, PhD , stanford.edu
  2. ↑ Policy Adviser Tapped to Become US Ambassador to Russia , nytimes.com, May 29, 2011
  3. ↑ a b Майкл Макфол: Пора, мой друг, пора! , livejournal.com, February 4, 2014
  4. ↑ Мой первый рабочий день в Москве , livejournal.com, January 17, 2012
  5. ↑ «Получение инструкций в посольстве США» , vz.ru, January 17, 2012
  6. ↑ Получение инструкций в посольстве США , youtube.com, January 17, 2012
  7. ↑ Vladimir Frolov in March 2012: Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel: United States Looms Large in Russian Elections ( Memento from March 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), russiaprofile.org, March 2, 2012
  8. ↑ Vladimir Frolov wrote in March 2012: “Although President Dmitry Medvedev in his public comments at Moscow State University largely exonerated McFaul by saying that meeting with opposition figures was a routine occurrence, even he warned the new US ambassador to Moscow that he is on Russian soil and should respect Russian political sensibilities. “ Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel: United States Looms Large in Russian Elections ( Memento from March 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), russiaprofile.org, March 2, 2012
  9. ^ "When I was ambassador, we did investigate threats. We took it very seriously, and so did the Russian government, by the way. They cooperated with us a couple of times. "
  10. ↑ Reflections on My First Six Months as US Ambassador to Russia , livejournal.com, July 21, 2012
  11. ↑ According to the FARA Act, in 2011 companies and organizations from Germany, such as the US Representation of the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs or Deutsche Telekom , were required to register as "foreign agents": US Department of Justice.Washington, DC 20530 Report of the Attorney General to the Congress of the United States on the Administration of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, for the six months ending June 30, 2011 , fara.gov
  12. ↑ a b Michael McFaul ( Memento of the original from March 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , ned.org @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ned.org
  13. ↑ a b Michael McFaul: Reflections on the Tragic Death of Max Shatto , livejournal.com
  14. ↑ Maxim Kuzmin's foster Mother says boy fainted, playing in the street ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Voice Of Russia, February 21, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sputniknews.com
  15. ↑ 'End to adoption question': Russia shocked at another child's death in US , rt.com, February 19, 2013
  16. ↑ Why is Michael McFaul so sad and upset in Russia? , english.pravda.ru, February 25, 2013
  17. ↑ Lavrov: Adoption ban for US citizens is a reaction to conditions in the US , sputniknews.com, Jan. 23, 2013
  18. ↑ Putin approves controversial Dima Yakovlev law , sputniknews.com, Dec. 28, 2012
  19. ^ Former US ambassador to Moscow banned from entering Russia , theguardian.com, November 12, 2016
  20. ↑ Board of Trustees . In: Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom . ( nemtsovfund.org [accessed June 15, 2018]).
  21. ^ Stanford political scientist Michael McFaul takes a revolutionary new look at Russian politics , stanford.edu, Jan. 27, 2001
  22. ↑ Independence Day Remarks Spaso House , July 4, 2013
personal data
SURNAME McFaul, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McFaul, Michael Anthony (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH October 1, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Glasgow , Montana