Ambassador to Bulgaria: Who Is James Warlick?

The current U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria enjoys unusually close access to the new U.S. ambassador to neighboring Serbia, not because of any nefarious dealings, but because the two diplomats in question are married to one another. James B. Warlick, Jr., a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, was confirmed as the nation’s new man in Sofia by the Senate on December 24, 2009, the same day his wife, Mary Warlick, was confirmed to be the new ambassador to Serbia. The couple are the Obama Administration’s first tandem ambassadors, although there is one holdover couple from the Bush administration, Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Richard Olson and his wife, Deborah Jones, who is the ambassador to Kuwait.

Warlick earned a B.A. at Stanford University in 1977, a Master of Letters in Politics from Wadham College, Oxford University in 1979, and an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1980. Prior to his State Department service, Warlick was a Foreign Affairs analyst at the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, and also served as Deputy Representative of the Asia Foundation in Washington, DC, and the Philippines. Despite its private sounding name, the Asia Foundation is a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) proprietary organization established at the height of the Cold War in 1954 with the mission “to undertake cultural and educational activities on behalf of the United States Government in ways not open to official U.S. agencies.”

After Warlick joined the U.S. Foreign Service, his early assignments included Political Officer in Bangladesh; Consular Officer in Philippines; Operations Center Watch Officer; Acting Minister-Counselor/ Deputy Counselor for Political Affairs, in Germany; Director for Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the European Affairs Bureau; Consul General in Moscow (2001-2003); and Special Assistant to the Secretary of State. While Director of United Nations Political Affairs in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO) during 2003-2005, Warlick also served as Principal Advisor to Ambassador L. Paul Bremer during January 2004 to July 2004 in Baghdad, Iraq. From 2005 to 2006, Warlick was Director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs, responsible for political-military and security issues for Europe and the former Soviet Union, including NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and related arms control and nonproliferation policy issues. Warlick served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in IO from April 2006 to 2009, with responsibility for all aspects of U.S. foreign policy at the United Nations and other multilateral organizations.

Warlick and his wife have three children–Jamie, Jason, and Jordan.

By Matt Bewig
http://www.allgov.com/