AMBASSADOR PHILIP S. KOSNETT (Ret.) represented the United States in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia during a Foreign Service career focused on security cooperation and post-conflict governance. His executive assignments included Ambassador to Kosovo; Chargé d’Affaires (acting ambassador) in Turkey and Iceland; and Deputy Chief of Mission (deputy ambassador) in Turkey, Iceland, and Uzbekistan.

Kosnett also served as a provincial administrator in Iraq and as a political-military officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. He held political-economic, counterterrorism, law enforcement, and environmental diplomacy portfolios in Japan and The Netherlands. In Washington, he served in policy, crisis management, and intelligence roles.

A graduate of Harvard with a degree in Government, Philip Kosnett worked in New York as a conflict simulation game designer and taught in Japan prior to entering the Foreign Service. He has formally studied Turkish, Japanese, Dutch, and Russian.

Since leaving federal service in 2021, Philip Kosnett has taken on roles in policy analysis, education, and defense publishing and returned to his roots in game design. In addition to consulting via Kosnett Associates LLC, he is a Senior Fellow with National Defense University’s Joint Forces Staff College and with the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis; an Advisor to the humanitarian organization AfghanEvac; and a Trustee of North Carolina’s Montreat College. He is the editor of Boots and Suits: Historical Cases and Contemporary Lessons in Military Diplomacy (Marine Corps University Press, 2023).

Philip Kosnett is a recipient of the State Department Superior Honor, Meritorious Honor, and Senior Performance Awards; the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service; the Department of the Army Medal for Outstanding Civilian Service; and the Republic of Kosovo Order of Dr. Ibrahim Rugova. He is an elected member of  the American Academy of Diplomacy.