Faculty

Alfred Reed (Al) Magleby is a Political Officer with the U.S. Department of State, which he joined in 1991. He has focused on strategic, political, and political-military issues in U.S. Embassies in Abu Dhabi, Baghdad, Cairo, Riyadh, and Tokyo. His most recent overseas assignment was as Political Counselor in Abu Dhabi, where he helped manage relations with a key strategic partner while juggling U.S. national security interests related to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Gulf, and Arab society in general. Al brought his diplomatic expertise to the Naval War College as a student in the senior class in 2009; graduating with distinction in 2010, he now serves on the Strategy and Policy faculty.

 

Prior to entry into the U.S. Foreign Service, Al graduated in Political Science from Brigham Young University, won a graduate research fellowship to study Japanese foreign policy issues at Tokyo University, and secured a full-time staff position in the then-dominant Liberal Democratic Party of Japan for an inside perspective on Japanese Diet politics. Leveraging well-developed Japanese skills during his subsequent service at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, he was designated the U.S. Foreign Service Linguist of the Year in 2000. He is a strong advocate of language skills as a prerequisite to effective international engagement. His study of Arabic at the American University of Cairo after the events of September 11, 2001, deepened his sense of the importance of smooth communication across cultures – indeed, diplomacy is communication. Embassy assignments requiring Arabic included monitoring proceedings in the Iraqi Parliament in 2007.