The Unfair Fight: Episode 02

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This week, I welcome Ambassador Butler, a 40-year career civil servant with the Department of State. Ambassador Butler is a long-time career ambassador and deputy commander of EUCOM. We talk about the unfortunate events we’ve seen with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the intersection of national security, geopolitics, and cyber activities, and the kinds of roles that cyber can play in any sort of conflict.

Ambassador Butler shares a few learning experiences from his long and storied career including serving Iraq, Bulgaria, and touring all over Africa, to dealing with the FBI’s most wanted, the White House, and working with the information warfare and Public Affairs Office of U.S. Forces. We finish by talking about how to get pragmatic when preparing for cyber attacks, and why we need to focus more on internet service providers in cybersecurity.

Ambassador Butler devoted four decades as an American and international diplomat to deterrence, crisis management, conflict prevention and promotion of human rights and democracy. He currently helps train U.S. Army units preparing to serve in Europe, the Middle East and Korea. He served two decades on the front lines of Cold War diplomacy before playing pivotal roles in ending conflicts in the Balkans and Northern Ireland and then engagement in the Middle East and Afghanistan. He exposed Communist Bulgaria’s ethnic repression of its Turkish population in 1985, was the chief American diplomat in Belgrade, Yugoslavia during the Dayton/Bosnia peace process, coordinated President Clinton’s involvement in the 1998 Northern Irish peace accord while at the White House as the NSC Director for Europe, implemented Macedonia’s 2001 peace agreement as U.S. Ambassador, led the “civilian surge” for Iraq in 2007 as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, and in Sarajevo advanced implementation of the Dayton Accords as the international community Deputy High Representative.

As the Foreign Policy Advisor to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, he helped shape military policy for Afghanistan and Kosovo. He then deployed to Iraq for a year with the commander of U.S. Forces dealing with shift of operational lead from the military to the Embassy. His last position was as the Civilian Deputy Commander of the headquarters for U.S. European Command confronting the challenges of resurgent Russia aggression and the Syrian spillover.

Ambassador Butler is a Bowdoin College and did graduate work at Michigan and Princeton.

Blackpoint Cyber does the fighting for you, but ever wish you could get closer to the action? Hear all the details firsthand at our podcast, The Unfair Fight. Listen to monthly episodes where Founder & CEO, Jon Murchison, VP of Threat Operations, Xavier Salinas, and Director of Threat Research, David Rushmer, get real and talk all things cybersecurity and more.

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