Ambassador Victoria Nuland was named Department Spokesperson in June 2011. From February 2010 – June 2011, she was Special Envoy for Conventional Armed Forces in Europe in February 2010. She previously served on the faculty of the National War College (2008-2009).
Ambassador Nuland was the 18th United States Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from 2005-2008. As NATO Ambassador, she focused heavily on strengthening Allied support for the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, on NATO-Russia issues, and on the Alliance’s global partnerships and continued enlargement.
A career Foreign Service Officer, Ambassador Nuland was Principal Deputy National Security Advisor to the Vice President from 2003-2005, and the U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO from 2000- 2003. From 1997-1999, she was Deputy Director for former Soviet Union affairs at the Department of State, with primary responsibility for U.S. policy towards Russia and the Caucasus countries. She has also spent two years at the Council on Foreign Relations as a “Next Generation” Fellow looking at the effects of anti-Americanism in 1999-2000, and as a State Department Fellow in 1996-1997, when she directed a CFR task force on “Russia, its Neighbors and an Expanding NATO.”
From 1993-1996, she was Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of State. From 1991-1993, she covered Russian internal politics at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. She has also served on the Soviet Desk (1988-1990), in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia where she helped open the first U.S. Embassy (1988), in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (1987) and in Guangzhou, China (1985-1986).
She speaks Russian and French. Her awards include: the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service (2008); the Secretary of Defense’s Distinguished Civilian Service medal (1999); decorations from the governments of Italy, Lithuania, and Albania, and numerous State Department Superior Honor awards.
She has a B.A. from Brown University and is married to Robert Kagan, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a monthly columnist for The Washington Post. They have two children.
