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RICHARD
D. DOWNIE |
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has confirmed Richard D. Downie, PhD as the Director of the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS). Located at the National Defense University, CHDS is one of five Department of Defense regional centers. Dr. Downie is a graduate of the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point (Class of 1976). In addition to his Bachelor of Science Degree from the Military Academy, he holds a Masters of Arts Degree and Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Southern California.
During a distinguished military career in which he held a wide variety of command and staff positions, he served as an Infantryman and also as a Foreign Area Officer specializing in Latin America. Dr. Downie had several assignments in Germany; was an exchange officer in Colombia, where he completed the LANCERO (International Ranger) School as the distinguished graduate; worked at both the U.S. Army South and the United States Southern Command in Panama; coordinated Western Hemisphere affairs on the U.S. Joint Staff; served with the Multinational Specialized Unit in Bosnia; and was the Defense and Army Attaché in Mexico. His final U.S. Army assignment was in command of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), where he served as the Institute’s first Commandant.
His military education includes the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Course and the Defense Strategy Course. He was also an Army Fellow in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Seminar XXI Program. After retiring as a Colonel from the Army, Dr. Downie assumed the position of Director of the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, in March 2004.
Dr. Downie authored Learning from Conflict: The U.S. Military in Vietnam, El Salvador and the Drug War, Greenwood Press, 1998; and “Low Intensity Conflict Doctrine and Policy: Old Wine in a New Bottle?” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (Vol. 15, No. 1, Jan-Mar, 1992, pp. 53-67); and “Taking Responsibility for Our Actions? Establishing Order and Stability in Panama,” Military Review (Vol. LXXII, Apr, 1992, pp. 66-77).
His numerous awards and decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Joint Service and Army Commendation Medals, the Army Achievement Medal, the Army Expeditionary Medal, the Inter-American Defense Board Medal, the “Orden de Mérito Académico” (Colombia), the Bosnia/Former Yugoslavia NATO Medal, the Order of Military Merit (Mexico), as well as the Order of the Peruvian Cross (Peru).
