Robert Strausz-Hupé

Robert Strausz-Hupé (25 March 1903 – 24 February 2002) was a U.S. (Austrian-born) diplomat and geopolitician.

In 1923 he came to the United States. Serving as an advisor on foreign investment to American financial institutions, he watched the Depression spread political misery across America and Europe. After the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, Strausz-Hupé began writing and lecturing to American audiences on “the coming war.” After one such lecture in Philadelphia, he was invited to give a talk at the University of Pennsylvania, an event which led to his taking a position on the faculty in 1940.

Strausz-Hupé founded the Foreign Policy Research Institute in 1955 and two years later published the first issue of "Orbis", the quarterly journal that remains to this day the Institute’s flagship publication.

Strausz-Hupé authored or co-authored several important books on international affairs. His first major work, "Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power", published just as the United States entered World War II, became a bestseller in its genre. His later works included "Protracted Conflict" and "The Balance of Tomorrow".

In 1969, he was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka. He subsequently served as ambassador to Belgium (1972–74), Sweden (1974–76), NATO (1976–77), and Turkey (1981–89). In 1989, upon retirement after eight years as Ambassador to Turkey, Strausz-Hupé rejoined the Foreign Policy Research Institute as Distinguished Diplomat-in-Residence and President Emeritus.

Quotations

*"As policy evolves towards several continental systems, and technology accentuates the strategic importance of large, contiguous areas. Thus the era of overseas empires and free world trade closes. If this reasoning is pushed to its absolute conclusion, the national state is also a thing of the past, and the future belongs to the giant state. Many nations will be locked in a few vast compartments. But in each of these one people, controlling a strategic area, will be master of the others."—"Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power", 1942

References

* [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/po/com/ United States Department of State: Chiefs of Mission by Country, 1778-2005]
* [http://politicalgraveyard.com/plalphas.html The Political Graveyard]