On Tuesday, September 24, the Strauss Center for International Security and Law and the Clements Center for National Security, will host Ambassador Larry André and Sarah Harrison to discuss “Rising Tensions in Northeast Africa.” Millenia old hydrology worries, centuries old national rivalries, and a decades old secessionist movement converge to generate rising tensions in Northeast Africa. Hear from Sarah Harrison of the International Crisis Group and Ambassador Larry André on the potential conflict involving Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Somalia’s secessionist state of Somaliland. This discussion will be moderated by Professor Stephen Slick, Director of the Intelligence Studies Project.
Biographies
Ambassador (ret.) Larry E. André, Jr., Professor of Practice at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, retired from the State Department’s Senior Foreign Service in May 2023 after a 38-year career in global public affairs. During his 33 years at the U.S. State Department, he served in a mix of leadership, policy, and management positions. Ambassador André’s leadership positions included Ambassador to Somalia, Ambassador to Djibouti, and Ambassador to Mauritania. He also served as Chargé d’affaires, U.S. Embassy South Sudan; Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Tanzania; Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Sierra Leone; Director, Office of the Presidential Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, and Deputy Director, Office of West African Affairs. Ambassador André’s management positions included Deputy Director, African Affairs Executive Office; Management Officer, U.S. Embassy Guinea; Administrative Officer, U.S. Consulate Kaduna (northern Nigeria); Deputy Management Counselor, U.S. Embassy Iraq; and Supervisory General Services Officer, U.S. Embassy Bangladesh.
Prior to joining the State Department’s Foreign Service, Ambassador André worked in Chad for USAID as an institutional contractor assisting refugees returning home following the war with Libya. Before that, he served both as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal and as Peace Corps staff in Washington, DC. As an undergraduate, he was a researcher at the Rose Institute of State and Local Government in Claremont, California.
Sarah Harrison is a Senior Analyst at Crisis Group. Before starting at Crisis Group, Sarah served for more than four years as Associate General Counsel at the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Office of General Counsel (OGC), International Affairs, where she advised on domestic and international legal issues related to U.S. national security and the activities of the U.S. armed forces. Sarah was the lead OGC attorney for the planning and conduct of DoD activities on the continent of Africa and was counsel to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs. From 2020 to 2021, Sarah taught international law as an adjunct professor for the Georgetown University Law Center. From 2015 to 2017, Sarah served as Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Stephen B. Slick is the inaugural Director of the Intelligence Studies Project. He retired in 2014 after 28 years as a member of CIA’s clandestine service. Between 2005 and 2009, Steve served as a special assistant to the president and the Senior Director for Intelligence Programs and Reform on the staff of the National Security Council. He was previously the Director for Intelligence Programs at the NSC. While serving at the White House, Steve participated in efforts to restructure and reform the intelligence community informed by recommendations of the commissions charged with investigating the 9/11 attacks and the flawed pre-war analysis of Iraq’s unconventional weapons programs. These efforts included a series of executive orders on U.S. intelligence issued in August 2004, key provisions in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the administration’s responses to recommendations by the “WMD Commission,” as well as significant amendments to Executive Order 12333 that were approved by President George W. Bush in 2008.
Steve completed five overseas tours as a CIA operations officer and manager, including service from 2009 to 2013 as the chief of station and director of national intelligence’s representative in a Middle Eastern capital. His assignments at CIA Headquarters included service as an executive assistant to the deputy director of central intelligence and leading CIA’s operations in the Balkans. Steve received CIA’s Medal of Merit, Commendation Medal and other awards.
Prior to joining CIA, Steve was a litigation associate at the law firm of Rawle and Henderson in Philadelphia. Steve received a B.A. from the Pennsylvania State University, J.D. from the UCLA School of Law, and Master in Public Policy from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.