Her parents preached to the Papuans

Bush appoints special assistant for Russia

President Bush has appointed 25-year career diplomat Mary Behrs Warlick as special assistant for Russia and senior director for Russia at the National Security Council, a position she still needs to be confirmed by the Senate. For the last ten years, Ms. Warlick has been focused on Russian issues. Before joining the White House, she headed the State Department's Russia Office, and from August 2001 to July 2004, she worked as Minister Counselor for Economic Affairs at the US Embassy in Moscow. In the Russian capital, Ms. Warlick covered a wide range of trade, investment and energy topics, with a focus on issues related to Russia's WTO accession process and the protection of intellectual property rights. Previously, for three years she was director of the Office of Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus Affairs at the State Department.

In 2006, at Georgetown University in Washington, Ms. Warlick said that “under the leadership of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, US policy towards Russia is based on realistic assessments - we cooperate where possible, but are not shy about saying what we cannot like". She is convinced that “Russia will not turn away from the path of reform,” but sees a trend of “gradual weakening of Russian institutions of civil society.” According to her, interaction with Russia is diverse, “but we must admit that the plans for strategic partnership, which were so much talked about after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have not come to fruition.”

“Mary's post has a lot of potential to influence policy, but it will only be as big as the president wants to make it, and Bush is leaving office next year. A conceptual breakthrough is not expected, but the president’s proposals are not being rejected,” Nikolai Zlobin, director of Russian and Asian programs at the Washington Institute of World Security, who is personally well acquainted with Ms. Warlick, told Vremya Novostei. According to him, Secretary of State Rice literally “pushed through” the creation of this post several years ago, citing the extreme importance of relations with Russia.

Mary Warlick is “a very authoritative, intelligent and meticulous person, who has information from a variety of sources, and is generally a pleasant woman to talk to.” She is “open to new ideas and a brilliant expert on Russia,” so “Moscow will not have to complain about her qualifications.” The problem is “how much her knowledge will be in demand by the White House.” “It is suspected that her predecessor Tom Graham left earlier this year as an adviser on Russia to Henry Kissinger's consulting firm due to disappointment in his work. Bilateral relations are in poor condition and will not improve. Mary’s task is to contain their too rapid deterioration,” concluded Nikolai Zlobin.

The future diplomat graduated from high school in Australia. She moved there from New Guinea, where she was born into a family of Lutheran missionaries who preached to the Papuans for many years. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she received degrees from the University of Valparaiso in Chile and from the Fletcher School of Diplomatic and Legal Studies in Massachusetts, where she also mastered Russian and German.

Before moving to Russia, Ms. Warlick worked at the US embassies in Germany, Bangladesh and the Philippines, together with her husband, Ambassador James Warlick. He is also a graduate of the Fletcher School and is now a very high-ranking diplomat - since 2006 he has held the post of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations; he was previously in charge of military-political issues in Europe and the former USSR at the State Department. In Moscow, while his wife was a minister-counselor, the husband was consul general, who did a lot to facilitate tourist exchange between the two countries. The Warlick family has three children.

Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN