Vol. 11 No. 1 | 2024 Edition
I always tell the young people: always ask. If you see something you want to do, an opportunity… I was at the Council on Foreign Relations, and I heard about a trip to Hungary, and this was in 1989, and the Wall had just come down, and I was really junior, and I just asked. I said, “Look, I speak fluent Hungarian; maybe you can use me as your rapporteur on this trip.” And in fact, the first time I asked, the Vice President said, “Oh, I don’t know if we have the money.” So I did some quick calculations because I knew at the time that a charter flight to Hungary was like $600, or something, round-trip from New York. So I said, “Well, I’ll pay my airfare.” It is a good thing I didn’t offer to pay for the hotel because they stayed in quite a swanky hotel. But the lesson I learned was: Oh my god! You have to ask! So, I think always ask and be open to opportunities. You can’t plan your career. I had this hokey calendar growing up with little phrases. One that always stuck with me was, “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.” You’re getting prepared at Fletcher, and then your luck is going to be when you’re already prepared, and some opportunity comes along. You can take that opportunity because you’re prepared and because you have the guts to take it.
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Dr. Evelyn N. Farkas has three decades of experience working on national security and foreign policy in the U.S. executive, legislative branch, private sector and for international organizations overseas. In 2019-2020 she ran to represent New York’s 17th Congressional District in the House of Representatives. She is currently the executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University. Prior to that, she was president of Farkas Global Strategies and a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Atlantic Council and national security contributor for NBC/MSNBC.
She served from 2012 to 2015 as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, also covering the Balkans, Caucasus and conventional arms control. From 2010 to 2012, she was the senior advisor to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and special advisor to the Secretary of Defense for the NATO Summit. Prior to that, she was the executive director of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism and senior fellow at the American Security Project. From 2001 to 2008, she served as a professional staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee responsible for Asia Pacific, Western Hemisphere, Special Operations Command, and policy issues including combatting terrorism and export control.
From 1997-2001, Dr. Farkas was a professor of international relations at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College. She served 1996-97 in Bosnia with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). She has published numerous journal articles and opinion pieces and Fractured States and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, Ethiopia, and Bosnia in the 1990s (Palgrave/St. Martin’s Press). She speaks Hungarian and German and has studied French, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, Russian and Hindi.
Dr. Farkas obtained her M.A. and Ph.D. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Board of Directors for the Project 2049 Institute, American Friends of the Munich Security Conference, Supporters of Civil Society in Russia, and previously served on the Board of Trustees of her alma mater, Franklin & Marshall College, Leadership Council-Women in National Security, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and as a D.C. family court-appointed special advocate.
