David Speedie is the founder and former director of the Council's program on U.S. Global Engagement. He is a founding member of The American Committee for East-West Accord.
In 2007–2008, Speedie was also a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Speedie worked at Carnegie Corporation of New York from 1992 to 2007. He joined the Corporation as a program officer in the cooperative security program and was appointed program chair in March 1993, a position he held for almost 12 years. In 2004, he was appointed to serve as special advisor to the president and director of the Corporation's project on Islam.
He was recruited from the W. Alton Jones Foundation where he was codirector of the secure society program and directed, over a five year period, programs in the arts, urban affairs, and the environment. In the 1980s, Speedie was a consultant to nonprofits in management, marketing, and fund-raising as well as director of cultural affairs for Mayor Bill Green in Philadelphia. He also served as the bicentennial liaison officer at the British Embassy in Washington.
For three years, Speedie was a professor of English and drama at the University of St Andrews in his native Scotland. Speedie holds an Honours M.A. [First Class] in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Studies and an M.Litt. from the University of St Andrews. He was a visiting research fellow as a Kennedy scholar at Harvard University from 1971–1973. He has been a book editor and writer for the National Endowment for the Arts' Community Vision, a freelance journalist on politics for The Scotsman, and most recently, a reviewer for the International Journal of Middle East Studies. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Featured Work
MAR 4, 2015 • Article
The Nemtsov Tragedy, and the Blame Game
Since Boris Nemtsov's murder in Moscow on February 27, we have been regaled by a range of ill-informed conspiracy theories, writes David Speedie. Yet Putin would ...
FEB 26, 2015 • Article
Then and Now: Eight Lingering Questions on U.S.-Russia-Ukraine
In March 2014, David Speedie posed eight questions on the Ukraine crisis. With an ongoing civil war in Ukraine some 15 months after the Maidan rebellion and ...
JAN 22, 2015 • Podcast
Extreme Political Parties in Greece: Economic and Cultural Factors
"There has been, in the period of the last 30 years especially, a breakdown of trust, not only between the governed and the government, but also ...
NOV 24, 2014 • Podcast
From "Indispensable Nation" to "Realism-Based Restraint": Reconsidering U.S. Engagement with the World
Former ambassador Chas Freeman has had a wide breadth of diplomatic experience, from the Middle East to Africa, East Asia, and Europe. In this conversation ...
OCT 31, 2014 • Podcast
From Paris to Moscow: The Rise of New Far-Right Movements Across Europe
What effect has the Ukraine crisis had on the rise of ultra-nationalist forces in Russia and what has been the impact on Russia's neighbors? What ...
OCT 16, 2014 • Article
Needs Work: A Troubled U.S.-Russia Relationship
"The febrile hyperbole of criticism directed at Russia as a result of the crisis in Ukraine is misdirected and harmful to both Russia and the ...
OCT 16, 2014 • Podcast
The Middle East in Crisis: A View from Israel
Chuck Freilich, former Israeli deputy national security adviser, speaks from Tel Aviv on turbulence across the greater Middle East, including the ISIL threat, Iran and ...
OCT 13, 2014 • Podcast
Elite Perceptions of the United States in Europe and Asia
An interesting new report finds that political and business leaders in Asia value U.S. hard power while Europeans focus on American values. Both, however, ...
AUG 28, 2014 • Podcast
Ukraine and the New Divide between the United States and Russia
David Speedie interviews Dr. Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on how the Ukraine crisis has ...
AUG 19, 2014 • Article
A Clear and Present Danger: Why We Need the UN Security Council to Help Defeat ISIL
The relentless advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant poses an existential threat to countries of the region and a grave challenge ...