REPORT FOR THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
SUBJECT: Ambassadorial Nomination: Certificate of Demonstrated Competence — Foreign Service Act, Section 304(a)(4)
POST: Ukraine
CANDIDATE: Keith W. Dayton
Keith W. Dayton currently serves as the Director of the George C. Marshall Center in Garmisch, Germany, a position he has held since 2010. He also serves concurrently as Senior U.S. Defense Advisor to Ukraine, an adjunct duty to his position as Marshall Center Director. This follows a four-decade career in the United States Army from which he honorably retired in 2010 with the rank of Lieutenant General. Among his many assignments, Lt. General Dayton was the U.S. Security Coordinator Israel/Palestinian Authority; Director of Strategy, Plans and Policy, Army Staff, the Pentagon, and Director of Operations for the Defense Intelligence Agency, including as Director of the Iraq Survey Group looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Lt. General Dayton’s extensive leadership experience, his broad and substantive engagement in, and knowledge of, European Affairs, and his demonstrated ability to manage complex and sensitive policy issues, combine to make him an excellent candidate to be the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.
Earlier, Lt. General Dayton was the Deputy Director for Political-Military Affairs (Europe/Africa) for the Joint Staff J5, the Pentagon.; the U.S. Defense Attache to Russia; the Executive Officer to the Director of the Joint Staff; and the Senior Army Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, in New York. He held multiple command positions, had extensive academic and professional training on Russia, and was a War College Fellow at Harvard among many other duties.
Lt. General Dayton earned a B.A. degree from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia; a B.A./M.A. from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, and an M.A. from the Army Russian Institute in Garmish, Germany in conjunction with the University of Southern California. He is the recipient of numerous awards from his military service, from the State Department and from the Canadian, German and Austrian governments. He speaks Russian and German.