Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Kurt Amend, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, was appointed Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary on September 27, 2010. As PDAS Mr. Amend is the primary deputy to Assistant Secretary Shapiro, and supervises the Offices of Congressional & Public Affairs (PM/CPA); Security Negotiations and Agreements (PM/SNA); the Coordinator for the Foreign Policy Advisors Program (PM/POLAD); and the Coordinator for Counter-Piracy and Maritime Security (PM/CPMS). Prior to his appointment as PDAS he had served, since August 2009, as PM’s Senior Advisor for Security Negotiations and Agreements. In that capacity, Mr. Amend led the U.S. Government’s negotiation of status of forces, defense cooperation, burden-sharing, and other international agreements that support U.S. forces deployed overseas.
Mr. Amend entered the Foreign Service in 1988. His first assignment was as consular officer at Embassy New Delhi (1989 – 1991). From 1991 – 1992, following the end of the Gulf War, he reported on political-military affairs at Embassy Riyadh. In 1992 Mr. Amend was assigned as general services and consular officer to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he helped to establish one of the new embassies in the former Soviet Union. In October 1992, with the outbreak of the Tajik Civil War, Mr. Amend was evacuated by the Russian and U.S. militaries to Washington, D.C. where he served as a watch officer in the Department of State Operations Center. In January 1993, Mr. Amend was detailed to the CSCE’s Mission to Kosovo, serving as a human rights monitor in Prizren, Kosovo, until April 1993, when he returned to Dushanbe.
From 1994 – 1995 Mr. Amend studied Arabic at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center, Arlington, Virginia. In 1995 he became the Deputy Political-Military Counselor at Embassy Riyadh until 1997. From 1997 – 2000 he was Deputy Consul General at Embassy Islamabad. From 2000 – 2002 Mr. Amend monitored India’s WTO policies in the run-up to the Doha Round at Embassy New Delhi’s Economic Section. From 2002 – 2003 Mr. Amend was the Political-Economic Counselor at Embassy Kabul, overseeing the initial development of Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan. In 2003 Mr. Amend returned to Washington where he was Country Director for Afghanistan in the Office of the Secretary of Defense until 2005. From 2005 – 2006 Mr. Amend was detailed to the White House where he was Director for Afghanistan on the staff of the National Security Council. Following one year of Russian language study at private institutes in Moscow (2006 – 2007), Mr. Amend became Consul General at Embassy Moscow (2007 – 2009).
Before joining government, Mr. Amend practiced corporate and securities law. He is a member of the New Jersey State Bar. He was graduated from Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin (B.A.,
magna cum laude, 1980) and the State University of New York at Buffalo, School of Law (J.D., 1984). His languages are Arabic, German, Hindi, Russian, Tajiki/Farsi, and Urdu. He is the author of “Counterinsurgency Principles for the Diplomat,”
Orbis, Spring 2010.
